Re: Recommendations for Duke Trip

Jobu88 · 2023-06-30T13:14:13.658Z

I'm going to the Duke game to kickoff the season. I've never been and wanted to see if anyone had any recommendations on cool bars, BBQ spots, etc. Go Tigers!

Recommendations for Duke Trip

Hai jobu...

Re: Recommendations for Duke Trip

castaway®

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Jun 30, 2023, 10:21 AM

I went to grad school at Duke and still live in Durham.

The joke used to be that the Duke students went to Chapel Hill when they wanted to do anything fun, but in the last 10 years Durham's downtown has had a massive redevelopment and Franklin Street has gotten more corporate so it's kind of reversed.

There are plenty of bars and restaurants downtown. While they are mostly upscale due to high rents they are almost all locally owned and not chains. Parking is easy and plentiful but you'll have to pay for it during the weekday until like 7 PM and you mostly have to pay from an app on your phone.

If you want more of a local bar experience there is Dain's Place on 9th street.

https://www.dainsplace.bar/

Dain's Place

The Best Neighborhood Bar in Durham! Located on 9th Street. Fantastic pub food (try our burgers)! Over 100 American craft beers! Superb Service! Free Wi-Fi.

9th Street is only a block or two long but it's the original local shopping area for Duke although it's been invaded by Panera and others at this point.

Nearby are both the Tavern and Green Room. Green Room is also a dive bar and has been there forever.

Haven't been in Tavern.

A few of the older bars some of which that serve food around downtown are:

Federal
Accordion
Motorco (know they do concerts, I think it's also a bar)

There are endless microbreweries and food trucks.

There are several walkable areas. The area around the old Bull's stadium has a food hall around the corner on Washington and there's a whiskey bar and Blue Note Grill right across the street from the old Bulls stadium.

There is an area next to the new Bull's Stadium called American Tobacco (or ATC) that has restaurants and bars.

Tobacco Roadhouse sports bar overlooks the new Bulls stadium so you can see the field if the stadium isn't open from the porches on the restaurant.

This is also the area where the DPAC (Durham Performing Arts Center) is located.
They get fairly large concerts and traveling shows.

There isn't any really good traditional barbecue in Durham unfortunately.

The oldest local place is Bullock's but I think the original owners died and if it's still in business at all it's probably not the same. There is also a place called Byrd's that has been there forever. It's a little out of the way and I thought it wasn't great the couple of times I went there.

Hog Heaven is a traditional barbecue place but it has bad reviews recently.

There are a couple of upscale chef owned fancy barbecue places.

Original Q Shack has been there for 20 years and people like it.

Picnic is out of the way and I'm not sure they have dine in but the sides get great reviews.

and there's a reddit group for Durham, r/bullcity that has constant restaurant reviews and bar updates.

BTW If you are looking for something special, there's an award winning Italian restaurant in a suburban strip mall. I've heard bad things about their reservations not being honored, but check it out:

https://www.gocciolina.com/