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How North Carolina Became a Restaurant Powerhouse

June 24, 2024

Why the Tar Heel State’s restaurant scene is among the nation’s fastest growing.

Down scenic byways and mountain passes, the state of North Carolina unfurls in natural beauty from the beaches of the Atlantic Coastal Plain to the hardwood forests of Appalachia. It would take you about seven hours to cross the state by car. On the way, you would see human civilization ebb and flow, cities dotting the state more or less evenly from the ocean to the mountains. Unlike some states, North Carolina’s population centers don’t congregate into tight pockets. Here, cities support farms and farms expand out from cities. A total, healthy ecosystem.

Over the last decade, this spacious, historic state has been one of the nation’s fastest-growing. Amid a population shift that has seen the Southern region of the United States absorbing emigrants from expensive states like New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, North Carolina has become a magnet for tech workers, manufacturers, back-to-nature hippies, and everyone in between. Growing alongside the population has been one of the nation’s most robust restaurant scenes.

Charlotte, NC.

In BentoBox’s 2023 end-of-year Trend Report, we found that North Carolina was the country’s fourth biggest state in terms of new restaurant openings — which struck us as odd, given it’s the ninth biggest state in terms of population. We wanted to find out why.

To get to the bottom of the state’s hospitality boom, BentoBox spoke to two people who live and breathe North Carolina restaurants: Chef Katie Button, a Beard-winning restaurateur in Asheville, and Eric Ginsburg, a food writer based in Raleigh. Pretty quickly, the picture became clear: North Carolina is what happens when a growing population meets a state with a great food culture.

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A growing restaurant scene

“When I think about why we chose North Carolina way back in the beginning, I look around and still get the same feeling.”

In the mid-2000s, Chef Katie Button and her partner Felix Meana were looking to open their first restaurant, but felt intimidated by the high cost and competitive culture of the New York City area, where they lived. After a long search, they relocated to Asheville, NC and opened Cúrate, a tapas restaurant that went on to win the 2022 James Beard Award for Outstanding Hospitality. Today, Cúrate is the cornerstone of the Katie Button Restaurants group.

Chef Katie Button cooking at a celebration for Asheville’s Highland Brewing with the Blue Ridge Mountains in the background. Via Instagram

“We chose it because we were looking for a wonderful place to live,” Button says. “Asheville had this perfect combination of being a smaller city in a beautiful setting, but still with a city vibe. North Carolina has a lot of those smaller-sized cities.”

Sources: Census.gov, NCRLA

Button touts density diversity as one of the state’s distinguishing features, saying that North Carolina’s mix of farmland and small cities leads to a healthy food system and balanced purple-state politics. “The state is very business-oriented, but very community-focused, too.”

North Carolina’s mix of cultural, economic, and geographic conditions has made it a perhaps unlikely mecca for restaurant openings. In 2023, according to data compiled by Restaurant Activity Report, North Carolina opened nearly 600 new full-service food businesses, a 3% growth over 2022 openings. Fifth-place Pennsylvania opened 450 despite having two million more residents.

“North Carolina has an incredible and underrated restaurant scene,” says Eric Ginsburg, who has contributed bylines to Bon Appétit, Raleigh magazine, and Eater Carolinas, among others. “Our cities have played second fiddle to Charleston [South Carolina] for too long. This state is massive, and is currently seeing a spike in exciting new restaurants, from port city Wilmington to small mountain town Sylva.”

One recent opening Ginsburg points to is Raleigh’s Jaguar Bolera, an eatertainment concept helmed by Top Chef star Manny Barella and opened by a restaurant group based in Denver. “Given that they dream of scaling this into a national chain,” says Ginsburg, “the decision of a Denver-based group to test the waters in Raleigh says a lot.”

The place to be

The primary driver of North Carolina’s restaurant growth is a growing population. In 2023, the Tar Heel State added 140,000 residents: the third-most people of any state in the country, despite having one-third and one-half the population, respectively, of the top two states, Texas and Florida.

Not only is the state’s population growing rapidly, it is growing smoothly — which signals a reliably expanding customer base to newly-forming businesses. Not every state can say the same. Here’s North Carolina’s growth compared with Pennsylvania, New York, and West Virginia, just to take a few regional examples.

North Carolina’s population grew 11.7% between 2010 and 2022, compared with 7.7% growth nationwide. Source

Better yet, the kinds of people moving into the state are of a demographic that tends to enjoy fine dining. During the 2010s, North Carolina’s second-biggest age group growth was 20–34 year olds, 260,000 of which moved into primarily urban areas. The Research Triangle region of North Carolina, for example, grew 13% between 2010 and 2020. But the two most populous counties out of that nine-county area, Wake and Durham, grew 23%.

In 2023, CNBC named North Carolina its “Top State for Business” for the second-straight year. Source

In 2023, CNBC named North Carolina its “Top State for Business” for the second-straight year. Source

All of which tells a simple story: not only is North Carolina among the fastest-growing states in the nation, but it’s attracting a young, cosmopolitan population. It’s pretty much the ideal foundation for the formation of new restaurants.

Tourism also plays an important role in the state’s restaurant development. “Our restaurant depends on both local support and tourism in order to survive,” says Chef Button of her Asheville concept. Tourists are driving business all over the state, concurs Ginsburg, “from the Blue Ridge Parkway to the Outer Banks.”

Blue Ridge Parkway near Linville, NC. Ashley Knedler via Unsplash.

“North Carolina is a great road trip state,” says Button. “I think that’s one of the reasons some of our smaller markets are having success.”

“The restaurant scene in all of North Carolina's bigger cities is worth a weekend trip,” says Ginsburg. “Each city has its own personality and trends, and while I'm partial to Durham and Raleigh, there are great culinary options across the state.”

A world-class food culture

North Carolina, of course, has always known how to eat.

“The most iconic North Carolina food is pulled pork barbecue,” says Ginsburg. “There's a rivalry between Eastern and Western style, but recently Texas brisket and other styles have started popping up around the state. I love barbecue and many of the restaurants slinging it, from Cook Out to Lawrence BBQ.”

Pik-n-Pig sits next to a working airfield in Carthage, NC. Via VisitNC.com

As with any authentic barbecue culture, some of North Carolina’s most legendary places are far out of the way. “People love to drive for hours to enjoy barbecue,” reports Ginsburg. “Old Colony Smokehouse in Edenton may be my personal favorite experience, followed by Pik N Pig in Carthage that sits alongside a small airfield.”

But in recent years, North Carolina’s growing restaurant dining scene has brought a new level of experimentation and diversity to the state. “There’s really high quality places now across the state, with some incredibly talented chefs” says Button. “I think about Vivian Howard, Ashley Christensen, Meherwan Irani, Gregory Collier — a lot of people who have been making a name for North Carolina.”

Chef Meherwan and Molly Irani, owners of Asheville’s Chai Pani. Source: Chai Pani

According to Button, the state’s mix of urban centers and farmland is integral to its rise as a fine dining destination. Farms supply the restaurants with local, seasonal ingredients, and restaurants distribute out-of-state dollars, via tourism, to farmers. The result is a healthy local food system. “Asheville in particular has a lot of smaller, independent farms, as opposed to large, sprawling farms. That means we get a lot of interesting produce,” she says.

“That’s something that happens across the state: people and restaurants are really proud of the products made in North Carolina.”

The new U.S. restaurant center

What is most exciting about North Carolina’s restaurant industry is that the factors leading to its growth seem to be sustainable. The population is growing steadily — lured by high-paying and tech-forward jobs — and moving into a diverse array of small, livable, affordable cities. The food system is healthy. The state’s biggest institutions, from the Research Triangle to its famous universities, will only continue to grow.

Raleigh (pictured), Durham, and Chapel Hill comprise the three anchors of North Carolina’s cutting-edge Research Triangle.

Add in the increased spending of post-pandemic tourism, and you have a state whose appetite for dining out is growing faster than perhaps anywhere else in the country. For that reason, North Carolina is opening about as many restaurants as states 20% larger. And the state’s natural infrastructure is ready to meet that demand.

“Everything is growing. There isn’t a single area where I haven’t seen more and more concepts, and quality that keeps leveling up,” says Chef Button. “And it’s not just in restaurants. There are a ton of independent producers who are passionate about what they do, whether it’s farming, or making cheese, or making shrubs for drinks.”

North Carolina’s restaurant boom, in other words, is a movement that braids industries and regions across the entire state. Quickly, it is a restaurant scene that is coming to define the state itself — and perhaps establishing one of the essential new centers of American food culture.

Follow Chef Katie Button on Instagram @chefkatiebutton and Eric Ginsburg @eric_ginsburg.