Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt was enjoying lunch at The Carolina Brewery when he had a big idea.
“I said to my friends ‘You know what, I’m going to take advantage of this,’” he said.
It was early July, and Kleinschmidt pledged to eat at every restaurant in downtown Chapel Hill for lunch — a feat he finally completed last Friday.
There are more than 50 places in downtown Chapel Hill to eat lunch, and Kleinschmidt tried them all.
“It really was amazing to experience the full diversity of what downtown offers,” he said.
Kleinschmidt said he tried everything from Indian food to a gourmet hot dog wrapped in bacon.
“We have every kind of amazing burger from just a basic off-the-grill burger to the fanciest gourmet burger,” he said. “It’s just amazing to experience all that in one big swoop.”
His original plan was to finish by the end of the summer, but underestimated the amount of restaurants in downtown. On Friday, Kleinschmidt completed the challenge when he ate lunch at Sutton’s Drug Store — the last spot on the list.
He said he enjoyed telling residents about the new restaurants that opened during this project, including Mei Asian, a restaurant on Franklin Street. He began tweeting about his lunches, using the hashtag #everydowntownchapelhilllunchspot.
“It was fun telling people what I was doing and helping people remember the great times they had in downtown Chapel Hill,” Kleinschmidt said.
Mark McCurry, the mayoral aide, went to almost all of the Chapel Hill lunch spots with Kleinschmidt.
McCurry said this project helped remind people that restaurants were still open even when students were gone.
“It certainly added a few places in my mind that I wouldn’t have thought of before to grab a bite to eat,” McCurry said.
McCurry said he’s glad Chapel Hill’s diverse downtown food scene is thriving.
“I think if people want it, they can probably find it downtown,” he said.
Meg McGurk, executive director of the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership, said she thought it was a great project.
“It’s fantastic that the mayor is so engaged with our downtown community,” she said.
“When he is representing our community to the rest of the world he can truly say he has eaten in every downtown restaurant.”
Contact the desk editor at city@dailytarheel.com
To get the day's news and headlines in your inbox each morning, sign up for our email newsletters.
