New Steakhouse coming to Cherryville
As downtown Cherryville continues to grow, buildings on and near Main Street are filling with new businesses.
Although it will be some time before we see the doors open, seasoned North Carolina restaurant owner Johnny Ray recently announced that he will soon be bringing Five Spur Steakhouse to Cherryville.
Ray has been in the restaurant industry for a long time.
“It started 10 years ago with Johnny Ray’s Signature Sauces,” he said.
After his sauce business took off, Ray left his day job and opened Johnny Ray’s Smokehouse in Fallston.
Over the course of his 10 years in the restaurant business, Ray has also established The Hoot Nanny in Forest City, and will now add Five Spur to his resume.
Ray is planning for the restaurant to have something for everyone, he said.
The price range will incorporate a little bit of everything from standard USDA steaks to high dollar cuts.
According to Ray, the restaurant will try to source many of the menu items locally and everything will be scratch-made at the direction of his business partner Stephen Soto, who runs the kitchen portion of the restaurants.
“He’s a great cook, fantastic in the kitchen,” Ray said. “We just want to do whatever works for the community.”
Bringing a new restaurant to Cherryville was not quite on Ray’s agenda until he was approached by Cherryville officials who thought the city could use one of his businesses.
“We’ve been very fortunate that a lot of towns have reached out to us, especially after COVID a lot of empty restaurants are around the nation,” Ray said. “A lot of towns with empty restaurants want to fill them.”
“The town approached me and I was pretty busy, and I kind of was like, ‘Ah, you know, we’ll talk about it,’” Ray said. “Patrick O’Leary showed up in the backyard of our restaurant in Fallston one day while we were in the smokehouse working and told me he wanted to build a steakhouse in Cherryville, and I said, ‘I want to do it with you.’”
Gaston County is sentimental for Ray and his wife Melissa, who is actually the granddaughter of the late Gaston County commissioner Joe Carpenter Sr.
The couple lived in the county for several years before relocating to Vale, and are looking forward to a new business venture in the area.
Currently, the team has no set opening date, and actually weren’t planning to announce the restaurant for quite some time.
“I wasn’t planning to announce it for another six months,” Ray said.
However, at a gathering to announce the restaurant to the team of people who would be working to bring it to life, the news made its way to Facebook.
According to Ray, the restaurant will be located 115 Main St. where the YMCA was formerly located.
“We’re looking forward to being in Gaston County,” Ray said.
This article originally appeared on The Gaston Gazette: New Steakhouse coming to Cherryville
