photo: Andrew Kornylak
Crook’s Corner’s revered shrimp and grits; the well-known sign with a pig on a pole; a handwritten recipe.
In the beginning there was Crook’s Corner. Every other joint in this town is an asterisk, the what-happened-after parade of four-star restaurants lining Franklin and Rosemary Streets. Crook’s was our first star. I don’t mean to lay it on too thick, but it’s no accident the restaurant sits squarely on the spot where Chapel Hill becomes Carrboro (or the other way around), the Tigris and Euphrates of Southern food. No, Crook’s didn’t invent it Southern food has been here since there was a South but they gave it a coat and tie and a haircut. And it cleaned up well.
“With an incredibly heavy heart, I must share the news that we are closing,” reads a message sent from Crook’s Corner to its customers. “The position we find ourselves in, exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis, is no longer tenable.”
The restaurant has been a mainstay in the Chapel Hill community since Gene Hamer and chef Bill Neal first opened it in 1982. The James Beard Foundation named Crook’s Corner one of America’s Classic Restaurant in 2011, which the foundations gives to restaurants for qualities like “timeless appeal, beloved for quality of food that reflects the character of their community.”