Welcome to Small Town Treasures, an occasional series about the surprising places to find great food in the rural areas surrounding Cumberland County. Know of a place that should be featured? Email food reporter Taylor Shook at tshook@gannett.com.
CARTHAGE — In the 19th and 20th centuries, about 40 miles northwest of Fayetteville, the Tyson & Jones Buggy Factory in Carthage produced horse-drawn carriages essential to North Carolina life.
Now, Southern Pines Brewing Company is reviving the last of the factory’s remaining buildings with a new restaurant and bar, creating what they say is a vital gathering place for locals in the Moore County town that has a population of about 3,000.
Located one block from the town center, the Tyson & Jones Buggy Factory office built in 1906 was in disrepair before Southern Pines Brewing Company turned the 5,300-square-foot brick building into The Buggy Factory restaurant and the Tyson & Jones speakeasy-style bar beneath it.
Since its opening in May, longtime Carthage families have come to try the food and drink — and to reminisce about the factory’s glory days.
“Locals have told us stories about their grandparents who worked here,” mixologist Mardy Berlinger said Friday.
Executive chef Emily Walden Harris said the factory’s rich history inspired the menu centered around Carthage’s surprising ties to Detroit, and by proxy, its distinctive pizza.
Tyson & Jones buggies, said to be “the Cadillac of their time,” inspired a factory visit from Henry Ford, who is said to have considered Carthage as a site for his Model T production facility. He went on to open the plant in Detroit in 1910. A few decades later, Detroit’s famous square pizza, originally baked in steel pans borrowed from nearby automotive plants, was born.
“We’re in awe of the history,” Korean-born Walden Harris said.
Chef Emily Walden Harris makes Detroit-style pizza with global flavors
Walden Harris, 36, who grew up just outside of Detroit and has worked in Michelin-starred restaurants around the world, said The Buggy Factory’s pizza menu reflects Henry Ford’s connection to Tyson & Jones, but also her Korean heritage, hometown roots and colorful career.
Each pizza pays homage to the original Detroit style: the focaccia-like crust has a crispy bottom and edges and is generously sprinkled with brick cheese — a salty and semi-hard cow’s milk cheese that originated in Wisconsin.
The toppings are where things get “funky,” Walden Harris said.
For example, the Greek Town pizza is made with roasted red pepper sauce, ground lamb, red onion, olives, banana peppers, feta and brick cheese.
“The Greek Town is Detroit,” she said, explaining that the Greek community has influenced Detroit’s food and culture. “I can’t even smell that pizza without being reminded of home.”
The K-Town pizza, topped with red pepper sauce, cheese, spam, kimchi, spicy yum yum sauce, scallion, sesame seeds and fried shallots, is near to her heart, she said.
Walden Harris moved to North Carolina from Seoul, South Korea, where she worked in a rice wine bar. That’s where she met her now-husband Justin Keller, a former soldier who was later stationed at Fort Liberty.
“K-Town is my ode to Seoul,” Walden Harris said.
Among The Buggy Factory’s salads, appetizers, sandwiches and desserts are more Korean-inspired dishes like cold noodle salad, soy-garlic glazed chicken wings and a spicy bulgogi Philly cheesesteak.
The Buggy Factory hosts brunch and bluegrass on Sundays
Like the pizza, Buggy Factory’s Sunday brunch, is an ode to midwestern comfort food with a menu of fried potato wedges called jojos, served with ranch and red pepper aioli or decadently topped with a choice of bacon, chorizo, roasted veggies and all the fixings.
As bluegrass music fills the air, diners can also indulge in chef Austin Crowe’s yeasted biscuits — his take on the Southern staple — served with honey and butter, whipped ricotta and local fruit jam, a country-fried chicken thigh or chorizo and gravy.
Mixologist Mardy Berlinger makes new-age drinks in an old-school setting at Tyson & Jones speakeasy
Behind the bar at Tyson & Jones, the speakeasy-style bar downstairs, is Mardy Berlinger, a familiar face to many in Fayetteville. Berlinger has served drinks at Latitude 35 in Haymount, the former Huske Hardware downtown and Mikoto Japanese Steakhouse on Raeford Road.
She created the craft cocktail menu, where each drink is named for women in jazz. At the 19-seat bar, Berlinger’s playlist with music from artists like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald plays softly over the speakers.
Berlinger, 39, who hails from North Dakota, said she has long been inspired by the holiday parties her grandparents threw in the ’80s that always featured a signature cocktail.
“It was always big and showy,” she recalled. “I remember being fascinated.”
She said she remembers the adults mingling in her grandparents’ Jamestown home and drinking Tom and Jerrys, a cocktail of rum, cognac, butter, milk and spices served warm.
Berlinger said her grandfather’s go-to drink was a “Walker’s water” — simply Johnny Walker scotch and water.
“Think of a ‘Mad Men’ situation where they’re pouring their nightcap in the office,” she said of her grandfather, who was a working man in the ‘50s. “That was very indicative of the time.”
While the speakeasy has an old-timey vibe, the cocktails bring to center stage new techniques and ingredients, informed by Berlinger’s upbringing in the Great Plains and her studies at the European Bartender School in London.
The Lee cocktail, named for North Dakota native and songwriter Peggy Lee, features a vegetable Berlinger said she ate a lot of growing up.
“Rhubarb grew wild in my backyard,” she explained. “When I went to London, they had ready-to-drink cocktails with gin, ginger and rhubarb. I probably drank like 20 of them while I was there.”
Berlinger said Tyson & Jones’ most popular concoction is the Smith, an old-fashioned made with bacon fat-infused Knob Creek bourbon.
Served alongside Southern Pines Brewing Company’s signature brews on tap, some of which are brewed in the speakeasy, most of the cocktails can be made non-alcoholic.
Berlinger said the bar and restaurant above it have begun to serve the purpose the team imagined since its inception.
“We wanted Carthage to have a meeting spot where they could come and have community,” she said. “It’s cool that they have something here, rather than driving to Southern Pines or Raleigh.”
The details
Address: 106 S. Ray St., Carthage
Restaurant hours: 4-8 p.m. Tuesday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 4-10 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 4-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, closed Monday
Speakeasy hours: 5-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Phone: 910-701-1080
On the web:thebuggyfactorysp.com
Food, dining and culture reporter Taylor Shook can be reached at tshook@gannett.com. Want weekly food news delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the Fayetteville Foodies newsletter.
This article was originally published by a www.fayobserver.com . Read the Original article here. .