Feeling Lucky at Lucky 32

With the recent closings of longtime downtown Greensboro institutions like M’Coul’s Public House, Liberty Oak, and Dame’s Chicken & Waffles, I’ve been thinking a lot about my own relationship with restaurants in Greensboro over the last 25 years.

I waited tables and tended bar here in college and my early 20s. It’s been a long time since I did a double shift on my feet at a steakhouse or pulled pints behind a bar. But do it just a couple of years and you’ll have a lifelong respect for people who make their living in the restaurant industry — and a very firm philosophy on tipping.

Back then, when downtown was struggling for a real revival, there weren’t nearly as many good options. M’Coul’s and Natty Greene’s were important investments downtown — both financially and spiritually. I had a lot of interviews at Liberty Oak and hoisted quite a few pints with old newspaper friends at M’Coul’s over the years. Then, as now, some people balked at parking a block or two from where they’re going and clutched their pearls when seeing someone experiencing homelessness. To which I can only say: You live in a city. Get your steps in. Buy someone less fortunate a sandwich. Act like you’ve been somewhere.

The restaurant business has never been easy, with thin margins even in better economic times. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us a restaurant’s average lifespan is around 6 years. Places like Dame’s (12 years), M’Coul’s (24), and Liberty Oak (27 downtown, 46 overall) defied those odds to become staples for a lot of us.

This week, I stopped in to appreciate a surviving local institution — Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen on Westover Terrace. As I tucked into the shrimp and grits, I remembered bringing my mother there in the early 2000s, when she was up from Carteret County. Collards, okra, cornbread, chow chow? Skillet fried chicken and she-crab soup? In the city? She was skeptical. One meal later, she was a convert.

Every time I’m there, I can’t believe it still exists.

The surrealist Greensboro mural on the way in.

The gorgeous bar and dining room, decorated with paintings by local artist Chip Holton, who paints on-site Wednesday through Saturday.

Live music on Wednesday evenings from local musicians Jessica Mashburn and Evan Olson.

A menu that shifts seasonally, offering new gems alongside the classics.

I called up founder Dennis Quaintance, who, with his partner Mike Weaver, opened Lucky 32 (named for a race car his dad once owned) in 1989. The Quaintance-Weaver properties, now employee-owned, include a second Lucky 32 location in Cary, The O. Henry Hotel and its Green Valley Grill, and The Proximity Hotel with its Print Works Bistro.

In his decades in the industry, Quaintance has seen tough times. Recessions. Inflation. A global pandemic from which Lucky 32 just bounced back, staffing-wise, last year.

“We’ve closed restaurants,” he told me. “We’ve been there. We decided we had to concentrate on what we were doing and do it the best we could — which is what we’re still doing now, 37 years later with Lucky 32.”

So they’re not going anywhere? Not hardly.

“Sometime between June and September, we’re doing what we call ‘Lucky 32, version 3.2,’” Quaintance said. “We’re waist-deep right now in trying new recipes, doing a refresh of the whole place. You have to do that, if you’re lucky enough to be around as long as we have.”

We’re lucky to still have the great local places we do. Get out tonight and show them you appreciate it.