Restaurant openings may dominate dining news headlines, but zoom out a bit and you’ll notice long-standing concepts with a cultivated audience quietly staying the course. These iconic restaurants anchor the towns and cities they serve without relying on chef-driven menus or culinary trends, and across the South, they are being taken over by new owners—not to change them, not to modernize them, but to preserve them just as they are.
On the surface, saving generational restaurants makes for a heartfelt story, and there is a good dose of nostalgia involved, but it’s equally true that a known commodity can be a good investment. This is where local restaurant groups can offer a palatable succession plan. Three such landmarks include Napoleon House in New Orleans, H&H Restaurant in Macon, Georgia, and Venus Pie Pizzeria in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Their stories are as unique as the towns they serve.
In the French Quarter, Ralph Brennan stepped in to secure not only the American birthplace of the Pimm’s Cup but also a pair of buildings dating back to the 1700s. Napoleon House was once the home of Mayor Nicholas Girod, and later a sailors’ tavern and a corner store, before it became New Orleans’ celebrated spot for a toasted muffuletta sandwich.
The Impastato family was ready to sell the restaurant they had run for a century but wanted the brand to live on. That was 10 years ago, and Brennan says it’s a credit to his team that few people have noticed the transition. “We changed very little, and all the art and photos are on loan from the family indefinitely.”…