WILMINGTON — Lots of movement happens around the Port City when it comes to restaurants, food trucks, bars and bottle shops, not to mention the numerous foodie events and festivals taking place.
Below is the latest on the food and beverage scene, including the opening of two new restaurants, bringing international flavors to the region. Plus, a new coffee truck is parking its wheels.
Mobile coffee bar rolls in from upstate New York
After spending the last four years serving locals in her hometown, the owner of a popular coffee truck in upstate New York recently made the 13-hour-trip down to her new home in Wilmington.
Originally from Plattsburgh, N.Y., Rebekah Léger opened mobile coffee bar High Peaks Brew at the age of 20.
“Coffee was just something that I really loved,” Léger said.
High Peaks Brew specializes in coffee crafted with house-made syrups, free of preservatives and dyes. They are best known for their maple lattes made with 100% pure maple syrup.
“That’s been my staple,” Léger said. The syrup comes straight from Sacred Roots Maple, her supplier in upstate New York.
One of their most popular specials: the “Marry Me Latte.” It combines maple syrup-shaken espresso and cinnamon, poured over either oat or whole milk.
“It’s actually the drink I was drinking when he proposed in a coffee shop,” Léger said, reminiscing on her and her husband’s engagement.
During her freshman year at Liberty University, Léger was inspired by Rookie’s, a local ice cream business that served desserts out of a small vintage camper. She wanted to open her own food establishment.
She completed her freshman year at Liberty, but decided to instead jump into entrepreneurship. Léger moved back to Plattsburgh, set on pursuing her dream of opening a coffee trailer.
Léger and her father spent the summer of 2020 gutting and renovating a small vintage camper into a fully mobile coffee bar. They built cabinets and shelves, installed a sink and added wood paneling before decorating the interior with plants and fairy lights.
“I’m going to be in here for eight hours a day, I want it to be a place that I could have a good spot to hang out in,” Léger said.
After eight months of preparation, Léger launched High Peaks Brew in November of 2020 out of a 1966 Phoenix camper. The name was inspired by her love of the Adirondack Mountains and its 46 high peaks that stretch across upstate New York.
“Everyone has a goal to hike all of them,” Léger said, noting the High Peaks Brew logo depicts the beloved mountain range.
For the last few years, Léger has enjoyed serving locals in Plattsburgh, especially at the local hospital. Shortly after celebrating High Peaks Brew’s four-year anniversary in November, Léger and her husband made the decision to escape the cold and move south, a place Leger said she has always desired to live.
Léger and her husband traveled down in early January, hauling the High Peaks Brew trailer behind them.
Since moving to Wilmington, High Peaks Brew has partnered with multiple local businesses. They use locally sourced beans from Blue Cup Roastery, along with serving pastries from Wilmington Bread Co. and Cravings.
So far Léger has done a few events, particularly at the CVS pharmacy across from the hospital, and at the intersection of Wrightsville Avenue at Independence Boulevard. On Saturday, Feb. 15, she will be set up in the Salters Haven community in Hampstead, 8 a.m. to noon. The truck is closed Sundays.
Its weekly schedule can be found on its social media sites and website.
UNCW junior opens pho restaurant
After five months of preparation, a UNCW business student recently opened the doors to his first restaurant near the Porters Neck area.
22-year-old Tom Nguyen is the owner of Vietnamese restaurant Pho 68, as he also balances a college career.
Nguyen is a junior studying business at UNCW. He said he was inspired to open his own restaurant and share his family’s recipes. Both of Nguyen’s parents were chefs in Vietnam, his mother a barista as well. His dad, Six, is the head chef Pho 68.
In Vietnam, the number 68 symbolizes success and prosperity, Nguyen said. He wanted the name of his first restaurant to reflect that.
The restaurant’s walls are covered by murals symbolic of his family’s history and culture. One includes a painting of his mother in traditional dress and the famous Truong Tien Bridge located in the central Vietnam area, where his family is from.
Pho 68 specializes in the traditional soup, but the menu includes items from vermicelli and fried rice to Vietnamese coffee. It’s printed in both Vietnamese and English, including the traditional names along with the translation.
Pho combines bone broth with noodles, meat, vegetables and herbs. On Nguyen’s menu, customers can choose to top the hot soup with steak, chicken or ribs. His personal favorite is the Pho 68; it consists of steak, tendon, beef ball, flank, and short ribs. The homemade broth contains no MSG or added sauce – the flavor comes from the bone itself.
“Everything is sweet from the beef bones,” Nguyen said.
Nguyen is particularly excited about serving Bò Né, sizzling steak and eggs, a dish only offered at one other Vietnamese restaurant in the Wilmington area.
“I don’t know why, but Vietnamese American restaurants in the United States don’t serve a lot of these dishes,” Nguyen said. “These are very popular dishes in Vietnam but not in America.”
Before opening his restaurant, Nguyen was also working as a nail technician at Diamond Nails; he struck up a conversation with a client explaining his interest in becoming a restaurateur. The client happened to bea real estate agent.
She agreed to help him find a space,’” Nguyen said, which ended up being 7134 Market St. It once was Point Break, which closed last July.
Pho 68 currently has 11 employees, but Nguyen is looking to hire more in the coming months.
He hopes to expand Pho 68 to more locations in the future but is focusing on the single restaurant for now. Its hours are Monday-Saturday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and the menu can be accessed here.
Indian Flavors to be North Carolina’s newest chain
Indian Flavors opened its first location in the University Center next to UNCW’s campus earlier this week.
It’s joined by other international flavors in the shopping center, with Jamaican food offered from nearby Jamrock Caribbean Grill and Chinese cuisine from Szechuan 132.
Restaurateur Harsh Patel, who also owns restaurants in other states — such as Alabama’s Red Rock — said he saw an opening in the Wilmington market for Indian cuisine. The Port City has been home to numerous Indian eateries throughout the years, many which have come and gone. Most recently, Nawab on Market Street closed; Tandoori Bites and Little Asia Bistro are the only two left serving the area.
Indian Flavors’ menu goes beyond Indian fare only; it also includes Indo-Chinese cuisine. Dishes include masala, curry, noodles, fried rice and more, made from the Patel family’s recipes, all of whom operate the restaurant.
“We have our own spices and our own marination process,” Jimmy Patel, Harsh’s cousin and franchise manager, said.
The chicken biryani and Schezwan rice have especially been a hit so far, according to Harsh.
His uncle, Preshant Patel, is the head chef and runs a kitchen of five sous chefs, each armed with a specialty. There is a naan chef and curry chef, for instance.
Dishes are served on a copper plate, traditional to Indian cuisine as a symbol of purity and longevity in Hindu culture.
Harsh said he chose the location with the goal of drawing in students from the area. The restaurant has a $12 build-your-own lunch special to appeal directly to them.
A bar program is also in the works and will offer a variety of Indian beers and whiskeys. The ABC permit is still in process.
More Indian Flavors will also be coming to other regions in the state this year, including in Jefferson and Raleigh. The University Center restaurant, located at 417 S. College Rd., is open Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., with Sunday hours from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
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