Resilience is in Corner Kitchen’s bones.
Tucked in the Historic Biltmore Village just off the Swannanoa River, the restaurant isn’t a stranger to flooding — or rebuilding. The team repaired the restaurant after major flooding in 2004, just six months after opening, and once again, they’re restoring the nearly 130-year-old historic home.
Currently, the inside of the building is stripped bare. But before the studs are sealed with drywall, the team at Corner Kitchen is leaving an indelible mark by placing time capsules inside the wall.
Corner Kitchen’s first-ever menu. Amy Westmoreland’s original key lime tart recipe. A heartfelt yet heart-wrenching letter that co-owner Joe Scully and his wife and Corner Kitchen COO Vanessa Salomo sent to their friends and family in the new year, providing updates on the events of Helene. The mud-soaked menu from the shadowbox outside when Helene struck. These items, and many more artifacts that the staff provided, are sealed up into nine mason jars, preserving mementos of what the restaurant means to the community.
The team has no intention of ever retrieving the jars. In the distant future, once the era of Corner Kitchen comes to a close and the building changes hands, there will be a story for someone else to uncover. “I hope we’re on a beach somewhere sipping on margaritas by the time they’re found,” joked Amy Westmoreland.
The memories sealed away serve as symbols of the heartfelt community, camaraderie, and resilience that has defined the restaurant from its beginnings in 2004 to the tumultuous times of Helene.
The road to reopening
The team has faced a long and difficult rebuilding process, navigating insurance claims, abiding by historic preservation rules, and receiving few grant funds. But keeping an optimistic attitude, the restaurant is taking the opportunity to build back better, reconfiguring the bar and parts of the kitchen— and perhaps the biggest change, making the door swing outward.
Update: After 318 days of rebuilding, Corner Kitchen is making its highly anticipated return to Biltmore Village on Monday, Aug. 11. In a social media post, the team said Corner Kitchen 2.0 is “filled with new stories, hidden time capsules in the walls, and still, at its core: welcoming, nourishing, familiar, home.”
