SUNRISE BISCUIT KITCHEN FIRE FULL

Taking a bite, I remember one of the men in the kitchen telling me that the same woman who created this recipe lived to be nearly 100. I pull out my biscuit, plain, and revel in all that is wrapped up in this simple package. Cheap and filling, simple yet sublimely satisfying, requiring minimal ingredients yet demanding a touch of magic, biscuits were an industrious and indulgent way to fill stomachs-and still are.Īmong artisanal doughnut shops, avocado toast brunches, and even biscuits dolled up with the latest superfood or meat substitute, Sunrise is a holdout of the Southern style, when hearty excellence and thriftiness were natural companions. With the restaurant closed for over a month, owner David Allen said Sunrise employees were eager to get back to making the biscuits that have made Sunrise a Chapel Hill staple. Like toast or oatmeal, the biscuit was a humble staple of breakfast tables across the south. Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen re-opens following June fire Posted Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen has re-opened following an electrical fire that damaged the restaurant. The owner’s grandmother ironed out the recipe for these biscuits when she was putting food on the table for her 17 children.

SUNRISE BISCUIT KITCHEN FIRE FULL

Before you know it, there’s a full bag in hand and you’re out the door. Flour floats in the warm air and the scent of rising dough is nearly intoxicating. The room is glowing and glorious, bustling with southern mamas buttering trays of biscuits and men with tattoos that hint they haven’t always spent their mornings folding flaky layers into the dough.

Biscuits plain, or with jam, sausage, or fried chicken can fill you up for little more than pocket change.ĭespite the efficient art of the biscuit-builders in the kitchen, the line still gets long, but those in the know, like Michael Jordan in his college days, get out, weave through the cars in the drive-thru, and slide in the door to the kitchen where there’s just enough room to place an order. The menu isn’t long, but it offers more than you might expect-even an incongruous low-carb option-and the orders are rattled off in rapid-fire displays of familiarity.ĭon’t make the mistake of looking too far down the menu everything you need to see is right there at the top, and has been since the beginning. The kitchen is a shoe-box-sized drive-thru at the bottom of the hill leading to the white-columned campus of UNC Chapel Hill. Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen has been serving professors and farmers, southerners and northerners what they rightly call “Bigger Better Biscuits” for nearly 40 years. In a puff of steam, I pull out the first tender biscuit, a study in delicious contrasts light crisp of crust revealing soft flaky dough, a hint of sweetness meeting the salty bite of sausage-simplicity and decadence all in one. “I’m out and about and sometimes people find out that I own Sunrise, and their face just lights up,” restaurant owner David Allen said when the restaurant was closed for repairs, adding that everyone associated with Sunrise appreciated the well wishes from fans on social media as word of the fire spread.The paper bag is tantalizingly weighty as I scoot out the door and flicker in and out of the line of morning headlights. Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen – and the traffic jam it can cause on some mornings as customers waiting to place their order file onto Franklin Street – has been a mainstay for generations of UNC students and Chapel Hillians alike.

Reactions poured in on social media as residents bemoaned the restaurant’s closing. Crews reported seeing smoke coming from the building “soon after power was restored,” officials said in a release. Contractors were in the area working to restore power to the building after storms rolled through Chapel Hill earlier in the week. The famous Chapel Hill restaurant announced the occasion with a “Grand Re-Opening” sign.Ī sign outside Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen identified the June 21 emergency as an electrical fire. Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen in Chapel Hill has re-opened after damage from a fire kept the restaurant closed for several weeks.

Sunrise biscuit kitchen fire