Crook’s Corner Closes After Almost 40 Years in Chapel Hill | Eater Carolinas

"For nearly 40 years I watched this James Beard Award–winning Southern restaurant—opened in 1982 by Gene Hamer and chef Bill Neal—be at the forefront of the Southern farm-to-table movement and be credited with popularizing the modern iteration of shrimp and grits. Housed in the building Rachel Crook established in the 1940s on the corner of Franklin and Merritt Mill Road, it became a repository of celebrations and pivotal career moments; when Bill Neal died in 1991 chef Bill Smith took over and ran the kitchen until 2019, and the restaurant had recently brought on chef Carrie Schleiffer for a new chapter. In an email to supporters the owners thanked the Chapel Hill and UNC communities for decades of support but said, with an incredibly heavy heart, that the position they find themselves in—exacerbated by the Covid-19 crisis—is no longer tenable, and co-owner Shannon Healy said she was heartbroken after trying to save Crook’s." - Matt Lardie