The Bay Doe

11/12/2021

Hey, you all! Don’t sleep on The Bay Doe, now! Yip!

There are signs of change after the loss of downtown for several decades, the rush of corporate restaurants seizing a new opportunity and the city's efforts to shake its "Fayettenam" moniker.

08/19/2021

Oh yeah… this dude!

08/19/2021

01/13/2021

Now a little about the project. The plan as of today is to source all our food from local farms within a 50 mile radius of the restaurant, bringing the freshest and healthiest ingredients we can to the community and keeping our relationships close to home.

My cousin, Kelly Barbato will serve as the executive chef, coming to Fayetteville from Asheville by way of our hometown in Highlands, NC and later Atlanta, Ga where he honed his skills preparing meals using wood-fire. We intend to build an open kitchen with a wood-fired grill at the Bay Doe and to build seasonal menus around what farmers have at specific times of the year. We hope to cut our own steak in-house, pickle our own veg in house, and provide a consistently high-quality meal for the community.

For us, this is about more than opening a bar or a restaurant. We want to build something that people value and that serves the community at all levels.

01/13/2021

Just a little about the name... we want this restaurant to serve and represent the people of this community and so we chose a name that pays homage to the rich history of the Cape Fear River Valley and its people. Steps from our building is where the NC convention ratified the US Constitution in 1789. Right across the street from our building is Liberty Point, where "The Association" met and penned the Resolves, declaring independence from the Crown in 1775 just after Lexington and Concord. Fayetteville was the first city to be named for General Lafayette after the war and the only namesake location in the United States to have been visited by the Marquis himself.

This city was originally called Cross Creek and it was settled by Highland Scots from Argyll (The Argyll Colony). Many of their decedents still live here today. These Scots were predominantly Tories during the Revolutionary War and one, in particular, named David Fanning was fairly brutal with the Patriots of NC at that time. The following link is to a public domain PDF of "Master of the Red Buck and the Bay Doe: a story of Whig and Tory warfare in North Carolina in 1781-83". It lays out the story of David Fanning having his prized Bay Doe (Bay Mare) stolen by Patriot Andrew Hunter, who Fanning was about to hang. Chapter XXII.

01/13/2021

The Bay Doe is a farm-to-table restaurant, wood-fired grill and whiskey bar coming to downtown Fayetteville in spring of 2022! We bought 130 Person St. in November 2020 and we're currently working with contractors to lay out a schedule to completely renovate. We couldn't be more excited to contribute to the community here in Fayetteville. Our plan is to source all the food from farms located within 50 miles of the restaurant. Oh yeah! We also plan to have the widest selection of whiskey in the area. Please follow our progress on instagram and fb. Phase I is the farm-to-table restaurant and whiskey bar, but Phase II is the rooftop bar! We've got our work cut out.