This story originally published online at The 9th Street Journal.
When you walk by the old Weeks Motor Company showroom on West Geer Street at the end of Rigsbee Avenue, the first thing you notice is this: It has phenomenal windows. There are 28 of them, stacked side by side and wrapping neatly around the curved corners of the building. As you walk up Geer Street, the windows are what draw you in. Light floods out of them onto the street. The facade sparkles.
This building has an eclectic history: It began as a showroom for the Weeks Motor Company, used to display the latest Lincoln and Mercury sedans, before being converted into an auto supply shop. After 42 years, the shop closed, and the building sat empty, filled with old furniture and dust, until it was reimaged as a storefront for a coffee shop that was really a church. But when neighbors discovered the church was anti-LGBTQ, the neighborhood erupted, and the building was soon empty again.
In the last few months, those big windows have been hidden behind brown paper. Last week, the brown paper came down at last, and the showroom opened its doors once again. Run by the same people behind the pizza place next door, Hutchins Garage, the showroom has been refashioned into Delancey Tavern, a modern, upscale twist on the warmth and community of a supper club.
The Weeks Motor Company
Before Durham became the third point in the research triangle, before the highways widened and gleaming condos began to spring up on every street corner, the area around Foster and West Geer streets served the industrial needs of the town. Mark Hutchins, the building’s owner, remembers when West Geer Street was far from a desirable place to spend your Saturday evening, filled instead with auto shops and factories. “It was sketchy,” he says, laughing.
In 1948, Albert Weeks built the Weeks Motor Company on Geer Street to serve as a car dealership for Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury automobiles. The rounded metal awning of the building then was capped with a “Lincoln Mercury” sign and large metal letters that spelled out “Weeks Motors” ran along the top. The showroom was the centerpiece. The tall, rounded windows acted as a display case for the selection of cars parked inside. To any passerbys drawn in by the sight, Mr. Weeks would jokingly tell them, “Don’t fall in love with anything that can’t love you back.”
When Weeks left in 1962, moving his business across the street into what is now the Motorco Music Hall, the Hutchins family took over, transforming the former dealership into an auto parts business that they would operate for the next 42 years. They added a fully functional machine shop, a paint mixing area, and instead of cars, the showroom housed the front counter.
In 2004, when Hutchins decided to close the shop, he couldn’t bring himself to sell the building. He was afraid the building would face demolition, and he believed that it had a place in what Durham was becoming. “Mark had a real vision for Durham,” said his wife, Twyla Hutchins. “He knew that Durham was developing, and he wanted to be a part of that.” And so, with the building still filled with old auto parts and leftover furniture, he waited.
Around the showroom, the neighborhood grew and developed. A hip coffee shop went in a few doors down; a music hall went in across the street. Parking became more difficult as the number of people living in the area crept up. In 2017, Hutchins decided that it was finally time for the Weeks Motor Company showroom to open its doors once again.
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Pioneers Durham
In 2021, after having sat empty for nearly 20 years, posters appeared on the windows, announcing the arrival of a new business: Pioneers Durham.
“Did you move to Durham because you wanted to be part of the weird, creative, and diverse leg of the Research Triangle? Are you in a creative, technical, or medical field and dreaming or playing in the startup wonderland that is Durham?” its website asked.
Inside, the showroom had been transformed. The old furniture and auto parts had been hauled away to make room for large wooden tables and boho wicker lamps. Everything, from the floors to the ceiling, had been painted a devout shade of white. There was a vintage orange car in the front, and an old bicycle at the entrance… just because. It was modern, it was Instagrammable, and most important, it wasn’t really a coffee shop at all: It was a church.
In an already queer city, Geer Street has a reputation as a particularly queer-friendly neighborhood, and so when word got out that a church would be opening soon, people took to Instagram with their concerns about the church’s position on LGBTQ+ people, flooding the Pioneers page with questions. Pioneers representatives deflected, deleting comments and blocking critics until at last the church’s pastor, Sherei Lopez Jackson, released a statement affirming commenters’ concerns. Pioneers acknowledged the existence of LGBTQ+ couples, but in accordance with church doctrine, it would not marry them.
Outrage erupted. Reddit exploded with posts, a parody Instagram account appeared, and a petition against the business garnered more than 7,000 signatures, bearing the slogan “Not in My Durham!”
“Durham welcomes people from all over the globe with different abilities, languages, cultures, faiths, sexual orientation, gender identities, and political persuasions,” the petition begins, “However, there is a new presence among us which threatens the safety and rights of our Queer communities.”
Pride flags cropped up across the neighborhood, and people would gather outside the showroom with “Keep Geer Queer” signs so that patrons could see them through the wide bay windows. Local pastors sent a letter expressing concern to leaders of the United Methodist Church (Pioneers then split with the church), and one woman even poured salt on the cafe’s doorstep to “cleanse the negative energy.”
In 2024, after weathering sustained community outrage and a split from the Methodist denomination with which it began, Pioneers Durham finally closed its doors. The showroom was empty once again.
Delancey Tavern
Next door, Malachy Noone was watching. Noone, who has had a hand in iconic Durham restaurants like Viceroy, Bull McCabe’s, and the attached Hutchins Garage, knew that the space was something special. “We always coveted this building,” he says. “It’s probably one of the prettiest buildings in Durham, but it was never available.”
Noone came to Durham almost 20 years ago from Brooklyn, and fell in love with the city and its character.
“Durham reminds me a little bit of the East Village in New York City. It was quirky and weird and queer, and I felt more at home there than the rest of New York,” Noone says. “I feel the same way about Durham. It’s kind of growing up in the shadow of Raleigh, but it has had so many amazing people and buildings.”
When he began planning what to do with the showroom, Noone knew that he wanted more than just a restaurant; he wanted to craft a space that honored the building’s heritage and invited them to stay. The result was Delancey Tavern, inspired by supper clubs. “We don’t have the dancing,” Noone says, “but we have one half of it.” (Supper.)
Every detail, from the food to the plates it is served on, is designed to evoke “old school New York” with a modern twist. The restaurant may be newly renovated, but, as Noone says,“You can see the fabric of the building the minute you look inside it.”
The road to opening was not easy— originally slated to open last May, the restaurant was slowed by permitting issues and tariffs, and, as opening day finally approached, a series of snowstorms in a place that gets almost none. But on February 5, the brown paper finally came down, and Delancey Pub opened its doors to the public once again.
Gone are the boho wicker lamps and tables of tchotchkes and sweeping expanses of white paint that defined the business—instead, the interior has been drenched in a rich, deep green. There are candles everywhere and deep wooden booths, and the corners of all the walls have been rounded off into smooth curves meant to mimic the building’s facade. Noone says changes weren’t made to erase the building’s history; they were made to enhance it.
“We’re just so proud of what we’ve done with it,” says Noone. “I hope it becomes a staple in the Durham community, that they can come here once a week, and that they can enjoy it. Whether you want to hang out quietly or enjoy the restaurant.”
As opening night went on, people filtered into the restaurant, drawn in perhaps by the flood of warm light that pours out of the wide windows and onto the street. After two long years, the showroom had come alive again. Bartenders cranked out drinks, servers flitted around, and a stream of plates made its way out of the kitchen. Behind the bar, tucked partway behind the cash register in the far corner, were two tiny pride flags.
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