Before opening their doors, the owners of three new Durham bars considered the obvious route, then said: What if we didn’t?
Ragen Lowek and Andy Pruss saw the local craft beer scene frothing and opened a seltzer brewery instead. Mike Douglass spent years perfecting daiquiri recipes, then launched a downtown lounge that doesn’t serve them—yet. The Ibarra brothers—whose family has been building an empire of Mexican restaurants across the Triangle for over 30 years—just went French.
Why the departures? Each owner paid attention to what their specific locations called for and where trends were heading. Here’s how those bets are playing out at Fizzwerks, Primrose, and The Lenny.
Fizzwerks
Inside a former tile factory on the fringe of downtown Durham’s Government Services District, Fizzwerks is coded as a typical brewery: there’s trivia on Wednesdays, a shuffleboard table, exposed ductwork…