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It’s Monday, May 19.
Thanks to this week’s sponsor the North Carolina Museum of Art: Visit the North Carolina Museum of Art to experience special exhibition, “Grace Hartigan: The Gift of Attention,” This exhibition explores the creative exchange between Hartigan and the bold New York poets who inspired her, sharing a fresh perspective on a pioneering American artist, now on view through August 10, 2025.
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Good morning, readers.
Raleigh’s Gateway Plaza is having a moment.
The 1960s-era shopping center off Capital Boulevard is now home to a wave of new and relocating food businesses. Fiction Kitchen just opened its permanent location there this week, alongside new Latin American restaurant Mala Pata and mezcal bar Peyote. Escazú Chocolates will leave its Blount Street home of 15 years to join them this June, and an unannounced concept from established operators will take over the former Fine Folk space soon.
“Being tucked away somewhere used to be a plus, but now it feels like a con,” Escazú co-owner Tiana Young says. “People want to go somewhere where they can do all the things.”
But these businesses aren’t just clustering for foot traffic. Since the pandemic, they’ve been rethinking their operations with disaster planning in mind. Fiction Kitchen and Mala Pata share infrastructure like restrooms and a walk-in cooler (with clear boundaries—“There’s no one cutting through our kitchen with a tray of chicken,” Fiction Kitchen owner Caroline Morrison clarifies). Union Special’s Andrew Ullom preserved his pandemic-era takeout window in storage.
“There is some trauma that we all carry,” Ullom says. “If this goes down the tubes, then what do we do?”
Read more below and have a good Monday.
—Lena
Durham
ICYMI: The Scrap Exchange plans to build a skate park in Lakewood Shopping Center. INDY’s Justin Laidlaw has the details.
Wake
A judge has ordered the release of body camera footage from officers who responded to the wreck that killed Tyrone Mason last year amid questions surrounding state troopers’ conduct, INDY’s Chloe Courtney Bohl reports.
Orange
Horace Johnson, Hillsborough’s first Black mayor, died late last week.
North Carolina
The Senate’s proposed budget cuts $180 million from public universities, with a particular impact on the state’s historically minority-serving schools, WUNC reports.
Today’s weather
Partly cloudy with a high of 80 degrees.
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