By Gregg Found
Carrboro Commons Writer

The newly-opened Southern Rail restaurant welcomed 450 guests on its opening weekend, and hostess Leslie Rautenberg got to greet almost all of them. Rautenberg said of the restaurant’s decorations, “this place has a lot of character, everywhere you look.”
Gregg Found photo

Southern Rail restaurant General Manager Spencer Pope refused to call the restaurant’s first day of business a “grand opening.”

“We’ll have an opening,” Pope said on Thursday, Sept. 20, a day before Carrboro residents could swarm into the train-themed restaurant next to Carr Mill Mall. “We just hope it’ll be grand.”

Such is the humble, community-based approach that Pope, owner Mike Benson and the staff of Southern Rail are taking to their foray into Carrboro’s downtown dining market.

“The problem with doing a brand-new restaurant is you run the risk of alienating people,” bar manager Steve Anas said. “We can provide a fun atmosphere that is respectful of the community in the feel of Carrboro – family-oriented but well-traveled.”

And Friday’s opening – despite Pope’s modesty the day before – was indeed grand.

He estimated that 250 people enjoyed the restaurant on Friday night, Sept. 21, and that 450 total had visited Southern Rail on its opening weekend, including a Saturday night cocktail on Sept. 22.

“I think it went awesome,” said hostess Leslie Rautenberg, who got to meet and seat almost all of the patrons.
Of course, Pope and Anas said, the first days of business weren’t without some usual glitches.

Anas said the restaurant ran out of a few items at the bar and that the staff wasn’t yet “savvy with the information” on the restaurant’s food and drinks.

“We didn’t know how many people to expect,” Pope said. “How much of this product? What are people going to jump on?”

The feedback from diners was almost all positive, Pope said, especially in regards to the food. But one aspect of the restaurant caught people off-guard.

“We’re very casual here,” he said. “We say ‘folks’ instead of ‘ma’am’ or ‘sir.’”

He explained that with a fancy and elegant menu, some were surprised at how laid-back the restaurant felt.

“We keep it as casual as possible,” he said.

Southern Rail bar manager Steve Anas is in charge of both a modern bar on the patio of the restaurant and the older bar pictured here, which the restaurant purchased at an auction. “It has more of an old-school train feeling,” Anas said.
Gregg Found photo

The process of opening a restaurant made from train cars, or “dealing with two metal tubes,” as Anas called it, began in May 2006 when Benson bought the cars for $175,000 in an auction. A restaurant named Crazie Mae’s previously held the lot in Carrboro but went out of business.

Pope, a Carrboro native, said the old train cars were dumpy, a place for people to drink and a haven for the homeless. He said part of cleaning it up entailed “chasing some squirrels out.”

But Benson took on the renovation project and molded it to his vision. He owns two restaurants in Washington, D.C. – one with an aviation them and one with a nautical theme.

For the rail project, he added a heated and air conditioned glass patio between the cars that holds a modern bar and he made room for outdoor seating, patio tables and an outdoor beer garden behind the restaurant.

Classic train decorations combined with plasma screen televisions give it a mix between the old and the new.
“It went from looking like two train cars to a turn-of-the-century rail station,” Anas said.

The restaurant serves coffee and wine, features separate lunch and dinner menus and two bars. But the biggest change, Anas said, was not to the railcars but to the grounds of the restaurant, which abuts the Carr Mill parking lot and neighbors Weaver Street Market.

Packing seats inside combined with outdoor eating space gives it the ideal feel, Anas said.
“We built this to be high volume but still cozy,” he said.

And a new restaurant in a popular Carrboro locale drew plenty of attention even before opening day.
“People were coming through saying, ‘I just want to look through it,’” Rautenberg said.

The restaurant, which doesn’t take reservations, hasn’t done any advertising, she said, but has just promoted itself through word-of-mouth.

“We’ve had all walks of life; that’s why I love Carrboro,” she said.

Rautenberg, an artist by day, said the decorations are perfect for the restaurant’s function.

“This place has a lot of character, everywhere you look,” she said.

Pope hopes that character will stick around Carr Mill Mall for a long time – or at least as long as the restaurant stays in business

“These trains have been here forever,” he said. “We don’t plan for it to leave until we say so.”

To contact Spencer Pope, Southern Rail’s general manager, call 919-604-1959 or email spencerpope@hotmail.com.