When a group of UNC graduates heard the Carolina Coffee Shop might have to close, they invested in the restaurant in the hopes of preserving a well-established staple on Franklin Street.
This past summer, the Carolina Coffee Shop came under new ownership by a group of UNC graduate investors, including soccer Olympian Heather O’Reilly.
“None of us have restaurant experience, but we are certainly all-hands-on-deck learning as we go in this next new and exciting endeavor in all of our lives,” she said.
UNC graduates Jeff Hortman and Clay Schossow said the group had already been friends for a long time before deciding to invest.
“Everyone had some memory of (the Carolina Coffee Shop) too, so it’s interesting that that was the connective tissue among all of us,” Schossow said.
Changes have already been implemented in the coffee shop. On an aesthetic level, the floors, lights and hanging décor have been altered to reflect a more historic vibe, a feature the three-time gold medalist said is important to new ownership.
“We definitely want to preserve the sort of feel and history of the bones of this place,” O’Reilly said. “We certainly want to make it clear to students and the town that this is a place where you can come, eat, (have) coffee, meet up and study. We just want to be a meeting place that’s open to a lot of different things for the people of Chapel Hill.”
Despite all of the aesthetic changes, one thing will be staying the same,
“In terms of the name, it’s been around for a long time and we don’t want to change that,” O’Reilly said.