A beloved dive bar space has been revived by a major Raleigh restaurant group

On the night Lizzo played Raleigh’s PNC Arena, owner Kevin Jennings said The Mill was slammed. The new bar, a revival of sorts for the former Edward’s Mill Bar & Grill, hosted the pre-concert rush for fans of one of the world’s biggest pop stars grabbing a bite and a buzz before the show.

“People were ordering shots of Fireball, people in their 30s and 50s,” Jennings said. “We got destroyed. But you’re going to get destroyed a few times as a new bar.”

The Mill opened in April at 3201 Edward Mill Road in the Olde Raleigh Village shopping center, becoming the newest restaurant under the Urban Food Group umbrella, joining popular restaurants like Vivace and Coquette.

The new restaurant’s name pays homage to Edward’s Mill Bar & Grill, a 26 year-old neighborhood bar that used to occupy the same space. Edward’s Mill was part of the grand tradition of strip mall dive bars, where you could find a solid burger and cheap beer and a community of regulars.

But dive bars aren’t exactly a concept a business owner can open up, it’s a title cured in a space over years. Jennings said he hopes to get back there one day with The Mill.

“A dive bar is earned over time,” Jennings said. “You don’t get to open a dive bar.”

Remember Porter City Tavern? Kinda like that.

Urban Food Group owners Kevin and Stacey Jennings see The Mill as a return to their early days of restaurants in the Triangle, when they had Porter City Tavern off of Hillsborough Street for a decade from 2003 to 2013.

“We loved Porter’s,” Kevin Jennings said in a phone interview. “We loved that concept, that upscale casual American-focused grill. It’s a place you can go and it’s good, not super complicated food. We think that always has a place.”

The Mill opens after nine months of construction, started in the summer of 2022, transforming the space into a modern casual restaurant, with warm leather banquettes along the walls, strings of lights on a shady patio and a slogan in neon begging for you to post it on Instagram, “A Shiny Place for Shady People.”

“We wanted to try and retain the spirit of Edward’s Mill, that neighborhood bar,” Jennings said. “But we want to update it to today’s standards.”

The menu at The Mill

The Mill only serves dinner, starting at 4 p.m., but Jennings is hoping it is part of a wave of local restaurants resetting the clock from pandemic-era hours. He hopes diners will seek it out when looking for a bite between 9 p.m. and midnight.

“We’re bringing late night back,” Jennings said. “Justin Timberlake was bringing sexy back, we’re bringing late night back.“

The menu features snacks like grilled wings and nachos, here called “Tavern Chips,” with versions like pulled pork with barbecue sauce and queso and a Thai rotisserie chicken with peanut sauce and queso. The sandwiches include a $17 burger and a shrimp po boy. The larger plates range from pub classics like fish and chips and Shepherd’s Pie shrimp and grits and steak with a baked potato.

“It’s good solid food, it’s not trying to win the James Beard award,” Jennings said. “It’s the kind of place you can go anytime for any reason.”

An ‘edgy’ bar with ‘higher end’ food

Urban Food Group has launched and operated major restaurants in the Triangle for nearly 30 years, but Jennings doesn’t believe there’s a flagship. In The Mill he said he’s tried to create the company’s flagship American restaurant and appeal to a broad base of diners.

“We wanted all different levels of clientele, blue collar, white collar,” Jennings said. “The beautiful part of Edward’s Mill and that area is it attracts all socioeconomic levels, all age levels.”

The Mill has upgraded the beverage offerings, introducing a high range of wines by the glass, as well as bottles up to $150. There’s more craft beer on tap, but The Mill has also kept a draft line for PBR.

“We’re taking this place and making it shiny — essentially new,” Jennings said. “We still want that edgy appeal, and want to make sure those people don’t feel it’s gotten too hoity-toity for them. But we’re blending that with the sort of higher end neighborhood restaurant where you might find a good California cabernet.”

But Jennings still seemed surprised by the rush before the Lizzo show, though he saw in that frenzy that maybe diners were already finding The Mill to be the any occasion spot he wants it to be.

“And hopefully in 20 years we’ll have earned that dive bar name,” Jennings said. “We all have a little dive bar in us.”