To Damion “Dame” Moore, his eponymous restaurant is simply a business. It just happens to trade in tender, succulent fried chicken and fluffy, buttery waffles instead of, say, car parts or Swedish massages.
Moore, who was a Business Administration major at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, has long had an entrepreneurial streak. He ran a catering company that specialized in nighttime and weekend events—while he was fully employed at a telecommunications company. After massive layoffs wiped out his whole department, he headed back from overseas work assignments in Asia and the Caribbean to focus on his catering business in North Carolina. Since 2004, his Blue Mountain Catering has occupied the Main Street space where five-month-old Dame’s Chicken & Waffles now sits.
Back in 2007, Moore “began to see people spending money in the city, doing things, being active. At that point, I was pretty much all-in, committed to staying downtown.” He knew from past experience he could run a successful business. All he needed was something new to sell.
“The goal was always to have this be a landmark location,” Moore said. “It was just me debating about what kind of product or format…It was an easy guess because ‘chicken and waffles’ is a great-selling thing.”
The curious dish was born, according to most theories, in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood during its 1920s and ’30s revitalization. The story goes that after their late-night gigs, jazz musicians would stop by the Wells Supper Club, where Mrs. Wells would serve them leftover fried chicken. It was so late, though, that the musicians also had a hankering for breakfast foods. So she added waffles—and created a culinary peculiarity that has stood the test of time.
In the last decade, there has been an upswing in restaurants serving the sweet and savory combination, and Moore, first and foremost a businessman, “wanted to saturate the market for chicken and waffles. We wanted to put a stake in the ground and say, ‘Hey, we’re the king of chicken and waffles in the [Durham] market and, quite frankly, in the state.’”
Moore the Owner and Moore the Chef almost operate in parallel universes. The owner talks of his investors, who have helped Moore start his business but have let him remain in full control. He can recite his two-year business plan with ease and wants to open his next location in 18 months. He explains the importance of insurance in his line of work and the assorted “nuts and bolts of it all.” It’s no wonder the restaurant is outperforming the plan. Though the location has had “great growing pains”—by which Moore means being exceedingly busy has been great—it will, before the end of 2010, graduate to “phase two.”
Now, Moore the Chef pipes up. The second phase will includes a full bar, savory waffle varieties, salads, sandwiches and grits dishes. (He has to explain the “Kiss My Grits” sign above the kitchen door somehow.)
Moore is as comfortable talking about the books as he is passionate about his food. He reviews the brining process he uses to lock flavors in the chicken. He waxes poetic on the magic of cornstarch for breading cutlets. He dreams out loud about herby cornmeal waffles with shrimp on top. He delights in describing how his dishes—“The Frizzled Fowl” or “An Orange Speckled Chabo,” for example—are named after types of chickens from around the world and are inspired by those regions’ cuisine. In this case, the former describes a chicken found in Asia and the latter is from the Caribbean, an indication that Moore has brought back a bit of his time abroad to the Durham eatery.
Moore the Owner is glad to see patrons enjoying Moore the Chef’s creations; he knew they would. He’s more worried about managing the business successfully and has his eyes locked on the goal of regional expansion. “If it fails, it’s going to be primarily something I do or don’t do as a manager of the business,” he surmised.
Moore’s dream is for the restaurant to “be a place where people can put their thumb on it and say, ‘I’m from Durham and Dame’s is my place.’” Until then, Moore—and the many people who flock to his winning, if wacky, combination—can enjoy the delicious moment.
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