‘Heartbroken that it's gone’: 401 Main closes, regulars reminisce on community

The first thing 401 Main regulars say when you ask them what they like about the restaurant is that it’s just like the television show "Cheers." Everybody knows your name — the show's tagline — and the longer you stay there, the more true the statement becomes.

401 Main closed on Feb. 4. On its last day, the restaurant was filled with regulars reminiscing on the past and looking to the future.

Chapel Hill native Chris Baldwin opened and operated 401 Main. He said the entire bar started as a joke, but quickly became a reality. 

“We jokingly said we wanted a bar for the community, and we used to go to a place every Friday, because I grew up here," Baldwin said. "So we would go there and hang out and then we said, 'We want to have our own place.' That was just a pipe dream."

But it wasn’t just a pipe dream.

The bar opened in 2019 on the corner where East Main Street and Rosemary Street meet, next to Carrburritos.

Driving by, locals will see outdoor seating, live music and a wall of doors. Walking in, the bar is bustling with talking, music and a posterboard of pet photos labeled “Puparazzi.”

“I loved that my pup’s picture was on the Puparazzi,” Randi Emerman, a 401 Main patron holding a photo of a dog, said. “Years after he died I could still come and visit him.”

Emerman was at 401 Main the day it opened and the day it closed. 

Wayne Jordan, 401 Main's bartender and one of its biggest draws, stood behind the bar.  

Prior to 401 Main’s opening, Jordan worked at City Kitchen, a restaurant/bar in University Place that closed after the COVID-19 pandemic started in March 2020. 

Regular Danni Hartley said that when City Kitchen closed, many of the regulars stuck together and started going to 401 Main. 

"It was kind of like they followed [Jordan] here," she said. "So it's kind of a legacy."

401 Main mostly attracted a crowd older than college students, with patrons ranging in age from their late twenties to their sixties and seventies. 

On the restaurant's last day of operations, the need for community came up a lot among patrons.

“The corporate takeover of Carrboro is just really not a great gentrification,” Hartley said. “There needs to be a sense of community and legacy. This is an old East Coast town, we need to have places like that.”

On Jan. 28, Baldwin announced through a facebook post that 401 Main would be closing. 

Ariana Wissick, a regular who also followed Jordan over from City Kitchen, said she was upset to hear that the bar would close. 

"I think I'm just mostly heartbroken that it's gone," she said. "That it's gonna not be here, and we're all really curious about what's gonna be here afterwards, and if it's gonna be anything that sort of compares to it at all or is it just gonna be like a lost space?”

In the final Facebook post Baldwin wrote that  although the restaurant's journey was unexpected and often arduous, the laughter, camaraderie and shared experiences made it all worthwhile. 

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