FOOD+DRINK
Seth Wilson (left), Heirloom’s general manager and executive chef, with Patrick Murphy, who leads the kitchen at Honeycomb Café.
LO C AL F L AVO R
HEIRLOOM REPLANTED Six months after Scott and Linda Murphy bought one of Charlotte’s most celebrated restaurants, the pandemic forced them to close. But they weren’t about to let it drop. A year and a half later, they’ve moved to Belmont and plan to expand BY TAYLOR BOWLER PHOTOGRAPHS BY KENTY CHUNG
SCOTT AND LINDA MURPHY had never run a restaurant until, two years ago, they bought their first. He’d owned and operated a dental practice in Morganton for more than 30 years, and she worked there as a dental hygienist. They raised three children, whose friends nicknamed the couple “Papa Murph” and “Mama Murph.” Theirs was the house where everyone dropped in for a warm meal. “We always had all the college kids at our table during the holidays,” Linda says. The Murphys had talked about opening a restaurant for about five years. In late 2019, they got their chance: Heirloom, the acclaimed farm-to-fork restaurant on Mountain Island Lake, was for sale. The timing felt right. Their 29-year-old son, Patrick, a graduate of Johnson & Wales University, would work in the kitchen. His best friend and J&W classmate, Seth
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Wilson, would be general manager and executive chef. Daughter Megan, a hospital coordinator and part-time interior designer, revamped the dining room. Their youngest son, Ryan, who earned a master’s degree in horticulture from Clemson University, would carry on the restaurant’s agricultural legacy with locally sourced ingredients. The Murphys took over in December, but we all know what happened next. Heirloom first closed on March 14, 2020. Five days later, they made the change dozens of restaurant owners were forced into: Heirloom began to sell meals to go, $10 orders in place of their typical $40 dine-in offerings. Their profits dropped 90%, and in May 2020, they closed permanently. They’d imagined that they eventually would anyway; when they bought it, their idea was to move the
CHARLOTTEMAGAZINE.COM // DECEMBER 2021
restaurant from its somewhat isolated Mountain Island Lake location to a more accessible, walkable neighborhood. They just didn’t realize it would happen so fast. “We couldn’t just close it and leave,” Linda says. They looked in Birkdale and Ballantyne but loved the small-town charm of downtown Belmont’s historic district. In early 2021, they signed the lease on a space in North Main Station on Glenway Street. They also snatched up a former drugstore on Main Street that they’ve transformed into a brunch-focused eatery called Honeycomb Café. Around the corner, next to a yoga studio beside Heirloom’s new dining room, they’re opening what Patrick describes as an “old-school, New Jersey-style” bakery that will serve homemade bread, pastries, coffee, and smoothies.
