As the Bible tells it, Noah’s ark sat perched on a mountain peak for months after it stopped pouring. Even though Noah could see that the murderous flood had receded, rather than venture out on his own, he sent a dove, or homing pigeon, to scout the place they’d come from. The bird returned, having “found no resting place for the sole of his foot.”
The crisis wasn’t over.
But, one week later, Noah dispatched the dove again. This time, the nesting bird flew back with an olive branch in its beak. It was ready to rebuild.
Ever since Hurricane Helene gushed into western North Carolina on September 27, 2024 with what Noah would have called a cubit of water, area residents have sought assurance that they’re on a path toward normalcy. In the first month or so after the storm, there was a series of encouraging signs. Power was restored in some places. Health officials said it was safe to take a shower. On Halloween, damn near everybody dressed up.
Still, those milestones didn’t bring the relief and confidence delivered by the twig-toting dove. Schools opened, concerts reappeared on the calendar, but the future still seemed shaky.
For many in western North Carolina—meaning those who weren’t closely connected to the 106 people killed or 1,000 homes destroyed—what recast the situation was new restaurants. In a community that’s long been defined by its shared spaces; in a region which cares intensely about food and the people who produce it, independent restaurant openings over the past three months have taken on tremendous significance.
One pair of restaurants—Potential New Boyfriend and Hail Mary, both on Haywood Road in West Asheville—has shown the way forward by asserting local values that Helene couldn’t wash away: accessibility, inclusivity, and just being weird.
“I’m a perpetual worrier,” says Kelly Gable, whose supposed anxieties didn’t stop her from moving to Sumatra to study orangutans’ parasitic infections in 2017 or buying a West Asheville restaurant four months after Helene.
Opened in 1946, Tastee Diner was a storied working-class joint that prided itself on serving nothing fancier than biscuits-and-gravy and meatloaf sandwiches. When chef Steven Goff took it over in 2022, he kept its name but hung a portrait of Escoffier to convey his divergent ambitions. Underscoring what he had in mind, he hired Gable, who previously ran the bar at Nashville’s stylish star-magnet Josephine, as general manager.
The backlash came before Goff could sling Tastee’s first snap pea and mint–tinged Pisco sour. By 2024, he and his wife had crafted an exit plan. Helene shut them down before they got to it.
“It ended up being a perfect opportunity,” said Gable, who purchased the restaurant from Goff with her aunt’s backing. Eager to play up Tastee’s nostalgia factor for fellow millennials, she hung neon wall art and piled stainless-steel trays high with poutine soaked in yam gravy.
As for the name, Gable said, “I went back and forth for quite some time, but people were very sensitive about Tastee, so I was like, ‘I’m making this my own place. This whole city is rebuilding: It’s the best time to try something new.’”
In honor of the despair from which the restaurant arose, and its queer aesthetic, she named it Hail Mary. A long shot, buttressed by the promise of victory.
As the restaurant’s January 29 opening approached and tinkering slowed on the menu of Snicky Snacks, Sandos, and Zerts, Gable was nervous about sharing Hail Mary. She knew Asheville had seen plenty of changes since Helene, and she wasn’t sure its traumatized residents were ready for more.
“Locals can be kind of brutal, so I was ready for the worst,” she said. “I got the best. It has been overwhelmingly good: I’m kind of stunned. People are saying the change is inspiring and exciting. My gut was right: This is what people needed and wanted.”
Potential New Boyfriend wasn’t conceived in response to Helene, but the vermouth-and-vinyl bar has proven to be the perfect rebuttal to it.
Its owner, Disco, was a longtime Pilates instructor whose pandemic hobby of ice-cream-making evolved into a farmer’s market stall that proved to be financially fraught. Reasoning he had to quit or expand, he started looking for a storefront in March 2023.
But Disco knew he didn’t want to spend his days behind an ice cream cooler. Instead, he envisioned a space like his living room, where people could relax and listen to music while eating bespoke sundaes.
He assumed he’d create such a place in the River Arts District. But his real estate search yielded nothing in the trendy neighborhood, which was later torn to pieces by the storm. So, the only Helene-related injury to his planned business was a permitting delay. By Thanksgiving 2024, he was ready to open—but unsure if he should.
“Everyone in Asheville had some level of survivors’ guilt, and mine was, ‘How do I celebrate and push forward with excitement and happiness when so many businesses are closing; when people are grieving?’” he said.
He put that question to a mentor, whose many years in local hospitality gave him standing to dismiss Disco’s concerns. Disco remembers her saying, “We need joy now. We can’t keep endlessly mourning and sink into destruction: We need spaces to be with the community again in a joyful manner.”
Potential New Boyfriend has radiated joy since its opening day on December 7. Even without a Helene grading curve, it rates as one of the best wine bars to open in the South in the past several years, in part because the nonchalantly swank lounge upends every Chard-and-cheese cliché.
Non-alcoholic wines are listed alongside their full-octane counterparts on a matrix that runs from light to full on one axis, and funky to classic on another. There are olives and almonds on the menu, but the real fun comes from pairing sparkling pear wine with pistachio cake, possibly while absorbing an obscure album from beginning to end.
“Already on weekends, we have to turn people away,” said Disco, whose worries about tourists edging out community members led to the launch of a membership program that gives neighbors the exclusive right to make reservations.
That element can’t be left to chance because Asheville’s economy and mindset remains fragile. Two energetic restaurants are an inspiration, not a solution.
In the Biblical story, Noah sends the dove out a third time. And he stays gone, because he’s ready to get on with it. The dove’s reappearance was heartening, but its disappearance is what confirmed the world was back on track. In other words, Asheville restaurant openings won’t always be newsworthy. That’s the promise of Hail Mary and Potential New Boyfriend.
Hannnah I can’t get this iPad to auto populate your e-adddress. Congratulations on the Ellie.
Also I’m not getting any of the city newsletters
Write On.