Hark & Holler · Spring Creek, N.C.Est. 1951
Supper Wed–Sun, 5–10 pm · Pie counter from 4 · On NC-209. The roadside canon, rebuilt with heirloom Appalachian ingredients and no apologies for the pan drippings.
This board counted the price of regular for forty years. It counts pies now. When the case is empty, it is empty.
Pies tonight6
In print
For forty years this building pumped Pure Oil to travelers on the two-lane. Now the service bays hold leather booths, the marquee counts pies instead of gas prices, and Chef Maren Sluder's kitchen takes the food of American roadsides and rebuilds it with tasting-menu technique.
Every dish names its roadside ancestor right on the menu — meatloaf, bird and waffle, the pie counter — and every ingredient names the farm that grew it, all within two counties of the door.
If we can't out-cook the memory, it doesn't leave the kitchen. That rule is printed inside every server book.
Ancestor: Diner meatloaf & mashed
House-cured Berkshire pork and dry-aged chuck, pressed and sliced like a terrine, lacquered with sorghum and black pepper. Charred-onion jus, stone-ground grits. You will want the pan drippings — they come in a little pitcher.
Sourwood Gap Farm (Madison Co.) · Stone gristmill (Buncombe Co.)
Ancestor: Chicken & waffles
Sweet-tea-brined pastured chicken, fried in leaf lard, set on a Jimmy Red corn waffle pressed thin as a pedestal. Spiced sorghum, bread-and-butter turnips, a dust of sumac. Eat it with your hands; we'll bring extra napkins without being asked.
Ancestor: The diner pie counter
Buttermilk chess pie from the counter case, torched burnt-honey meringue, benne brittle. The counter holds six pies a night; when the case is empty, it's empty. Check the marquee on your way in.
The sorghum we lacquer the meatloaf with, the pepper vinegar on every table, the rub the patty melt gets before the griddle. Bottled, tinned, and shipped anywhere in the lower 48.
