Crook's Corner is Chapel Hill's most important restaurant and one of the foundational kitchens of the modern Southern food movement. Bill Neal opened it in 1982, and the shrimp and grits he served here — creamy stone-ground grits, Gulf shrimp, mushrooms, bacon — became a signature dish of the New Southern cuisine. The restaurant has changed hands since Neal's death in 1991 but has maintained his legacy with a menu that celebrates local ingredients and Carolinian tradition. A meal here carries genuine historical weight.
The building is easy to spot — a pink concrete-block diner with a large pig sculpture on the roof.