Greetings from Carrboro,
The first time I swung a pickaxe to break up the ground, it bounced. Hardscrabble would have been a generous description – 75 years as a parking lot is not an ideal history for arable soil. But my belligerent youth eventually overcame any semblance of intelligent self-care and after close to six hours of back-breaking work, a garden bed began to take shape behind the restaurant.
This must have been May or June of 1998; I do remember it was sunny and hot. There were no trees except the few sad ones the town required we plant before we opened. Yet somehow I could imagine people festively eating out there – generations of wild neglect be damned. Just before finishing work that day, the pickaxe unearthed a horseshoe from the red clay. Of course, I took it as an omen. To this day, the same rusted horseshoe still sits over the backdoor of the restaurant.
That was the beginning of the restaurant’s odyssey toward outdoor dining. Those first, cheap patio sets that I bought at Lowe’s. The oh-so romantic, blue streetlight glow. The Perrier table-umbrellas that I got in exchange for purchasing 10 cases of the sparkling water to sell at the restaurant. The fences, the fountain, the plants, the shade sails, the, well, everything.
And maybe, just maybe, we are at the end of that 22-year odyssey. Or at least one helluva good place to stop and rest for a while. The pandemic has certainly not been easy for the restaurant. But it has fueled our sincere determination that there is only one direction that makes sense for us – and that’s forward.
So we’ve spent the past several months building my dreamed-of restaurant patio just for you. Wow, it’s beautiful. Ceiling fans, vaulted tin roof, twinkly lights, beautiful plants – the oasis in Carrboro that we all need right now. And I’m thrilled that starting tomorrow (Friday, 8/21) at 5pm we will begin serving cocktails and some yummy snacks out there. However, no full meals quite yet; we 
are going to take this slowly. But Acme will be a restaurant again. It will be a place that feeds our collective soul again. And that feels so damn good.
This week @ Acme To-Go: the return of the Lobstah Dinnah Maine Staycation! Two lobsters, clam chowder, corn on the cob, dinner rolls, and blueberry cobbler. For landlubbers: Acme tomato plate. Classic cornbread. Pecan-crusted fried chicken. Summertime cheeseburgers. Forever roasted pig. Wedge Salad. Salted caramel bread pudding. Beef short ribs. Corn & goat cheese empanadas. Blackened salmon. Tuna poke. Banana pudding. Acme’s old school tomato pie. And enough wine, beer, and our signature sangrias to make all of this a little easier to bear.
Well, that’s all the news from Carrboro. The staff at Acme look forward to serving you soon.
Cheers,
The Staff at Acme
