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I should warn you that this is just my off the cuff first impression of downtown Durham. It's very biased, and not very accurate. It's just my first reaction. I had big expectations for what to expect in downtown Durham in terms of food options and activities and diversity.
My partner and I got off the plane from SFO, dropped our bags off in the hotel room, and went straight out to Brightleaf Square for dinner. I know it's a Sunday, but I was surprised at the total lack of people at 9pm. We went over to Pop's Trattoria for dinner which turned out to be pretty full. The food was good and they had a Muller Thurgau on the wine list, which is hard to find. The main part of Brightleaf Square was almost completely empty.
When I asked about Brightleaf at the hotel, the young woman at the front desk said "Oh yeah, that's where everyone eats". When she said everyone I expected to see a diverse crowd of people. Instead everyone looked pretty much like me, except for the Mexican cooks.
My partner tries to tell me that I make too much out of these things, and who cares if everyone at the restaurant looked the same. Chill out already, he says. I grew up as a kid in a mixed neighborhood until my parents got scared and dragged us to the country. Many years later I lived in Chicago and loved it. No, I didn't always live in the most diverse neighborhoods, and I'm no civil rights hero but I still notice a lack of diversity when I see it.
I guess I was expecting that the downtown dining area would be larger, and that I'd see more diversity in the diners there. I'm not trying to hang out with minorities just to prove how "open minded" I am. I just noticed the complete lack of diversity in a town that is 50% African American.
Am I being too harsh? Where do the rest of the people in Durham hang out?
I'm not familiar with that particular dining place, but Durham is in fact very diverse. I think maybe coming from SFO you might be expecting something diferent? Durham is a city, but it's not a huge city and it's still getting it's metropolitan gears going, as is much of NC.
I recently moved here myself, but I can tell you that I think part of your problem may be the time you were there. I've learned (coming from a city that closes late) that Sundays here tend to be family days. As such, most people may venture out after church, but tend to eat meals at home. You should probably give it another chance on a different night. I lived in West Village when I first got here and there was more activity during the week and Saturday than on Sunday. Don't count Durham out yet! But understand it may not ever be as busy as you're used to.
You have no idea what small cities in other parts of the country are like do you? To even have places like Brightleaf is a major change for Durham from when I was growing up there. If you have the slightest expectation that Durham will be anything remotely similar to San Francisco or even Oakland than you will be sorely mistaken.
So many of the people fleeing the cities to North Carolina arrive with such unrealistic expectations that it borders on the comic. Don't believe the real estate agent hype on these boards. The triangle is great if you are coming from a small town (makes it seem cosmopolitan) or a hell hole (New Jersey and environs) or if you want more space and a slower pace to raise kids. But to expect anything close to SF/LA/Chicago/Seattle/NYC/Boston is silly. If it was like those places it would cost like those places.
I have lived all over North Carolina (mostly Durham) and half of the cities I mention above. So I have some experience on this subject.
There are gems in Durham, you just need to know where to look. Check out Ninth St, the American Tobacco Campus, and the part of town around a restaurant called Watts Grocery. There are also a number of great places around the University Ave/15-501 business route area.
Also, there are some great places in South Durham (that are not chains), though that part of town has a distinctly more suburban feel to it.
I agree with a couple of the previous posters - Sunday, in general, is not a busy time in most of the South. Unless you're in one of the major cities like Atlanta, you can expect areas like downtown and Brightleaf to be nearly empty on a Sunday night. If you go out on weeknight, though, you are likely to have a very different experience (especially since we're expecting unseasonably warm weather this week!)
Having lived in the South for most of my life, it was quite a change for me to see the constant level of activity when I spent four years in Los Angeles and San Diego. So, I can understand how someone who isn't familiar with the South might be taken aback a bit by the slower pace here.
There are gems in Durham, you just need to know where to look. Check out Ninth St, the American Tobacco Campus, and the part of town around a restaurant called Watts Grocery. There are also a number of great places around the University Ave/15-501 business route area.
Also, there are some great places in South Durham (that are not chains), though that part of town has a distinctly more suburban feel to it.
This post is spot on! There are also great places like Toast & Revolution popping up in what is truly "downtown" Durham--inside the Urban Loop.
You have no idea what small cities in other parts of the country are like do you? To even have places like Brightleaf is a major change for Durham from when I was growing up there. If you have the slightest expectation that Durham will be anything remotely similar to San Francisco or even Oakland than you will be sorely mistaken.
So many of the people fleeing the cities to North Carolina arrive with such unrealistic expectations that it borders on the comic. Don't believe the real estate agent hype on these boards. The triangle is great if you are coming from a small town (makes it seem cosmopolitan) or a hell hole (New Jersey and environs) or if you want more space and a slower pace to raise kids. But to expect anything close to SF/LA/Chicago/Seattle/NYC/Boston is silly. If it was like those places it would cost like those places.
I have lived all over North Carolina (mostly Durham) and half of the cities I mention above. So I have some experience on this subject.
[Danger: Rant Mode Active]
I appreciate your perspective. I'm sure you didn't mean to be offensive. I grew up in a mixed-race housing project in a small steel town in Pennsylvania before moving to a trailer park in a much smaller homogeneous town about 8 miles away. I've lived in Chicago for 8 years before moving to a town smaller than Durham south of San Francisco 14 years ago. I think I have a pretty diverse perspective on what to expect when I travel to a new city. The purpose of my question was to ask if I was mistaken in my first impression, not to have someone tell me that I didn't have a clue.
Please don't assume that everyone moving from California is some stuck up city folk who expects everything to be "just like home".
I appreciate your perspective. I'm sure you didn't mean to be offensive. I grew up in a mixed-race housing project in a small steel town in Pennsylvania before moving to a trailer park in a much smaller homogeneous town about 8 miles away. I've lived in Chicago for 8 years before moving to a town smaller than Durham south of San Francisco 14 years ago. I think I have a pretty diverse perspective on what to expect when I travel to a new city. The purpose of my question was to ask if I was mistaken in my first impression, not to have someone tell me that I didn't have a clue.
Please don't assume that everyone moving from California is some stuck up city folk who expects everything to be "just like home".
[End rant mode]
I'm not sure if your perspective is too far off, Durham isn't a large city, and it's downtown area is still being revitalized. Until that really happens, and you have more people living in some of the new lofts, etc., it will not be very busy. And, Sunday is a bit of a slower day. If you had been out Saturday during the basketball game, it would have been much different.
Your experience is fairly typical. Brightleaf area caters mostly to the middle class and above white people. The college spots around there are fairly frat boy. This is a major generalization, as some spots near there are more mixed, like Torero's. Not bad people, but far from diverse.
The Broadstreet/Ninth Street crowd will be the more liberal crowd, a better mix of people economically and probably a more gay friendly crowd, but not racially diverse.
My experience the most diverse nightlife is probably Chapel Hill, on Franklin Street. I have not been there in years but growing up in the area I remember seeing every make and model of person on Franklin Street.
Durham has a diverse mix of people on paper, as does the Triangle as a whole, but those people don't mix too much socially. There are african american clubs and white clubs, you can go to any of them and have a good time, but you will not see a large mix of people. My experience is that while not diverse, no one gives you a problem if you are not the typical customer.
I always said that integration in Durham did not happen until the 1980's when the school systems merged, until then kids grew up with their "own kind" and did not experience racial diversity. I was one of 8 white kids at my Middle School. I was viewed as being a rich kid because I was white, meanwhile I lived in a apartment like a bunch of other people. As I made friends people realized I was just like them and the getting slammed into a lockers and being called a cracker stopped. Now that the schools merged I think more kids are growing up with more diverse friends and that is showing up in the social lives later in life.
Most places are slow on Sunday nights and most nights of the week. Raleigh and Durham used to close by 10pm, but this has been changing lately.
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