Relish is EXPANDING!

I am happy and excited to announce we will be opening The Kitchen Table at Relish—Biscuits, Brews, and Board Games next door to Relish some time in the Spring of 2019 (as close to April 1st as we can get).

Why the Expansion?

The current kitchen at Relish has been too small for us for a few years now. Business is great, thankfully, but because of that and our extensive menu we really do need a lot of prep and storage space—especially since we want to keep creating new dine in “Test Kitchen” menu items and expand our takeout capacity to include larger family meal and catering portions, too. So, when our landlord offered us the former Dos Taquitos space next door to our kitchen, we jumped on it.

Once we realized that we would only need about 1/3 of the space to expand our current kitchen and build the new takeout counter, we seized the opportunity to flex our creative muscles and create a secondary dining area. The challenge was to come up with a completely new menu that complements Relish without actually competing with it. And we met that challenge with The Kitchen Table at Relish—Biscuits, Brews, and Board Games—or the Kitchen Table for short.

Why the Kitchen Table?

If Relish is our “main” dining room, then we consider the expansion space as our smaller more intimate “kitchen table”. We love the images that a kitchen table invokes. As the heart of the home it is the place where meals and memories are made and where you invite close family and friends to cozy and intimate gatherings.

Why Biscuits?

The Relish brand is southern comfort foods and what can be more southern and more comforting than the biscuit? And, for that matter, what would fit better than a biscuit at the kitchen table?

At Relish, we have been making our own homemade sweet potato biscuits for years now and we are delighted to expand the flavors we offer—to classic buttermilk biscuits, iced blueberry or blackberry biscuits, bacon and chive biscuits, jalapeno and corn biscuits, cinnamon biscuits, and vegan biscuits just to name a few. We will offer flights of biscuits/jams/butters/gravies plus creative takes on biscuit sandwiches—smoked brisket biscuit, chicken fried tofu biscuit, biscuit hot brown, and definitely our signature Relish chicken biscuit with pepper jelly and pimento cheese.

Why Brews?

“Brews” stands for both local craft beer (rotating selections from NC’s 130+ craft breweries) and also locally roasted coffee (from Five Star Coffee Roasters in Holly Springs) ground and brewed at the Kitchen Table bar as both drip coffee and specialty drinks (including adult versions). We will also have a solid wine selection and a small cocktail menu—both chosen to complement our biscuit-centric menu.

Why Board Games?

This is the part that I am most excited for and that needs a little longer explanation. Board game cafés are a very European and Canadian concept that are gaining in popularity across the US. The Kitchen Table at Relish will be the second one (that we know of) in North Carolina—the first is Well-Played in Asheville that opened in 2017.

My own family rediscovered board games just around a year ago and I cannot wait to share the experience with others. No lecture intended; but so many of us, myself included, spend so much of our time connected to people only through technology. Finding ways to spend time just talking with no screens has become a bit illusive. But playing board games sets the stage for some of the best conversations about life and learning and they are also perfect ice breakers that can encourage a group to find common ground.

The games themselves have improved SO MUCH since the heyday of Candy Land and Monopoly. If you haven’t tried a “gateway” Eurostyle game like Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, Sushi Go, Dominion, 7 Wonders, or Pandemic you may not know that modern board games are now less about random luck and more dependent on strategy, friendlier competition, and even cooperation.

We already have a library of over 400 games that we have been sacrificing ourselves to learn to play—including the old standbys (like Scrabble, Life, and Sorry) to the newest releases (like Root, Century Spice Road, and Scythe). We will have trained “gametenders” available to help you choose a game that is a good fit for your group and teach you how to play it. For the first year, all games will be free to play (we’ve got to get you hooked, right?) but eventually we will need to charge a nominal game playing fee to help us cover the cost of upkeep on the game library (replacing those inevitable lost pieces and buying the latest games).

So there you have it—The Kitchen Table at Relish, 5629 Creedmoor Rd Raleigh NC 27612 coming in the Spring of 2019.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me at sharon@relishraleigh.com

Sharon May, Owner