CityView Magazine - Fayetteville, NC
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/9341
Dining Out HUNGRY for Horne’s 100 years and counting, and Fayetteville still can’t get enough By Allison Williams hooked into the rungs of his barstool, a homemade sandwich on its way. Horne’s has been many things over H the past 100 years or so, often teasing Fayetteville with its on again-off again relationships. But it’s hard to keep a good diner down. Above | Horne’s Cafe actually began life as Horne’s Drugstore and stayed that way for more than 100 years. Today, it’s a popular downtown eatery. Marie Johnston always loved the old- Above | Ivy Davis chats with Horne’s customers Duncan Hubbard, from left, Dave Foster and John Garrity. fashioned feel of the place, one reason why she and her son, Steven, reopened Horne’s after a two-year hiatus. The Johnston “boys” are well-known in Fayetteville restaurant circles – they helped run Huske Hardware House Restaurant. Johnston says her sons grew up in the restaurant business in Vermont, but then, everyone in the family worked, including her. When her boys were small she cooked in their school cafeteria and later ran her own restaurant. “I guess cooking is in the blood,” she said. Some of Fayetteville’s notables hang out at Horne’s, including George Breece and Fayetteville Mayor Tony Chavonne, 34|June/July • 2009 who holds a regular get-together here. Folks from Holmes Electric stop by for breakfast before heading into work across the street. Dave Foster says some of his co-workers don’t even need to order – they just walk in. Foster took a client there for lunch, a visitor from Raleigh looking for the perfect cheeseburger. “He said it was the best cheeseburger he’d ever had,” Foster said. And is this coming from someone who, ahem, looked as if he could qualify as a good judge. When the waitress listed the choices of cheese, the man requested one of every kind. “They brought it out, and he had to eat it with a knife and fork,” Foster said, laughing. “They seem to know everybody.” arold Grace rests his elbows on the long counter, hands cradled around a steaming mug of coffee, feet