'Food and fun': Five new businesses opening on and around Franklin Street in 2022

Over the summer, five new businesses and restaurants have come or are coming to Chapel Hill. 

Here’s what you need to know about each new location:

Basecamp

Basecamp opened on May 27 at 105 E. Franklin St., next to Sup Dogs. The restaurant has a large cocktail selection and a rotating menu of food from countries around the world.  

Basecamp stays open until 2 a.m. to satisfy late-night cravings from Thursday through Saturday. The restaurant is also open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. for Sunday brunch. 

Basecamp owner Ramesh Dahal said he wants to include the whole family at Basecamp, even those who are too young to drink.

“This is not only the bar, this is a place where (people) can celebrate, they can meet and they can have fun,” he said.

Still Life

Still Life, an 18-and-up nightclub, is having a soft opening of their rooftop space above Sutton’s Drug Store at 159 E. Franklin St. on July 8. The grand opening of the entire venue will take place on the weekend of August 19.

Still Life General Manager Cameron Renna said that Still Life is an entertainment complex with four rooms: a full-scale nightclub with bottle service, a smaller cocktail bar that fits 60 to 70 people, a rooftop bar with a roof that opens and closes and a 25-and-up bar.

Still Life also has another location in Greenville, North Carolina, where it is a popular nightlife spot for East Carolina University students.

“We're definitely big in the community in Greenville, and that's something that we are excited to bring here to Chapel Hill as well,” Renna said.

Prologue Used and Rare Books

Prologue Used and Rare Books, a sister store to Epilogue Books Chocolate Brews, is set to open next door at 109 E. Franklin Street by the end of July. Owner Jaime Sanchez said Prologue’s exact opening date will be announced by the end of June.

Sanchez owns and operates Epilogue with his wife, Miranda. He said he chose to open Prologue in order to include more seating for patrons and to house the used and rare book collections. 

Prologue will also have a community meeting space and provide more square footage to host events. Sanchez said that opening Prologue is following through with a promise of having a space for the whole community.

“We definitely don't want to rush it this time,” he said. “Epilogue opened and we saw that people responded to it, so we just kind of stayed open and didn't do a grand opening. We want to do it right this time.”

Bombolo

Bombolo, owned by siblings Garret Fleming and Eleanor Lacy, will be a Mediterranean-Italian restaurant set to open at 104 N. Graham St., beside Al’s Burger Shack.

“We'll make everything from beginning to end,” Lacy said. “It'll be food that we like to eat, which is a lot of fresh pasta, stuffed pasta. We’ll be curing prosciutto and salami, and then we'll be using a lot of fresh local vegetables and seafood to cook whatever else we want to make.” 

She added that the restaurant will have a cozy atmosphere and not be too expensive or formal.

As of now, Lacy said an opening date is not clear but that she’s hoping for sometime in August.

Raising Canes

Raising Canes is a Louisiana-based fast-food chain that specializes in chicken, Texas Toast, coleslaw, crinkle-cut fries and its famous Canes sauce. 

Raising Canes will open at 101 E. Franklin St., next to Starbucks. This location was home to Spanky’s restaurant for over 40 years. From 2018 to 2022, the space housed Lula’s, another fried chicken restaurant.

Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership Executive Director Matt Gladdeck said that the restaurant is working through permitting and will hopefully open close to August but the exact date is still unknown.

Raising Canes only has two other locations in the state, both in eastern North Carolina in Jacksonville and Greenville.

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