A new country restaurant has moved into where Jimmy D’s used to be.
FatBaby’s Country Cooking opened at 1215 Greene Haynes Road on May 4.
The restaurant was named after the uncle of Fred Taylor Jr., who owns the business with his wife, Ashley Taylor, and Mitchell and Jennifer Archer of Virginia, who both work on Saturdays.
“We call him FatBaby,” Ashley Taylor said of Bryce Outlaw. “He says he’s been called that as a child. But he’s not as big a minute.”
The restaurant is currently open for breakfast and lunch and features a serving bar. Lunch customers can choose a meat, two sides, a bread and a drink.
The fried chicken and the pork chops are popular and served daily, Taylor said.
“Every day is something different on our bar,” she said.
The day’s specials are:
n Monday — baked chicken
n Tuesday — ham steak, baked backbone, beef tips
n Wednesday — barbecue chicken, meatloaf, chicken pastry
n Thursday — steak and gravy, spaghetti
n Friday — fish stew, fried fish, barbecue ribs
n Saturday — barbecue, hot or fried chicken wings, other items vary
From the grill, customers can get hamburgers; cheesesteak; dough burgers — a mixture of hamburger meat, flour and onions; and a Baby Grand — a triple cheeseburger.
“That’s really big,” Taylor said about the Baby Grand. “It’s enormous.”
Popular for breakfast are the tenderloin biscuits, pancakes, French toast and breakfast plates. For $3.75, a customer can get two eggs, a meat, grits or rice, a bread and a drink or coffee.
Lunch begins at 10:30 a.m.
The restaurant is mainly family-operated. Fred Taylor’s father, Fred Taylor Sr., and two of his uncles help out, with one uncle instrumental in cooking the fish stew.
The Taylors are both natives of Kinston.
FatBaby’s Country Cooking is open 5 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday. For information, call 252-527-9779.
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As city workers replaced a line and repaved a section of Queen Street recently, Kathy Howell was making plans to relocate her flower shop.
On June 15, she moved Flowers To Go out of the Queen Street building she had leased and opened her shop at Mills Funeral Home two days later.
“We talked about it two months ago,” Howell said about the move. “When the road closed, I made up my mind.”
The roadblock had caused traffic congestion at the intersection where her shop was located — causing customers to go elsewhere — beginning the week before Mother’s Day, the peak season for floral business, Howell said. In fact, sales were 50 percent down for the holiday, she added.
The old building at the former location was another reason she moved.
“With the economy the way it’s been,” she said, “it’s been hard to maintain a building that size.”
The space at Mills Funeral Home is not a new one to Howell. When the funeral home was built about 10 years ago, it had an addition with a private entrance just for Howell’s business. Howell operated two locations then.
After about a year, she found it was too costly to handle two locations, so she closed the one at the funeral home, deciding Queen Street had more traffic flow.
But — one could say, unfortunately — the funeral business is booming. And that makes for a perfect match for the two businesses.
The flower shop will continue to provide fresh flowers and arrangements to go at its new location.
“I’m inviting all my customers to come here,” Howell said, “and we’ll do the same thing (as the previous location did).”
Flowers To Go, 1300 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays. For information, call 252-522-0553.
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The Country Squire Winery in Duplin County released a new Moscato wine called Squire’s Best on Thursday.
The new release makes the 15th wine the winery has produced in the 8 years it has been in business commercially, said Robby Smith, who manages the winery with his wife, Loraine Smith.
“The Moscato is a sweeter wine with a citrus-y flavor,” Smith said.
The slightly sweet and refreshing wine is available in Goldsboro, Selma, Jacksonville and at other locations on the coast, as well as at the winery. Call-in orders can be shipped, Smith said.
The Country Squire is a fine dining establishment, winery, wedding venue, motel and wine and gift shop, which sells a variety of jams, jellies, salsas, rum cakes and more. There is no charge for wine tastings.
The Country Squire, 748 N.C. 24/50 Business between Kenansville and Warsaw, is open noon to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, noon to 9 p.m. Saturdays. For information, call 910-296-1727 or 252-521-3324.
Margaret Fisher can be reached at 252-559-1082 or Margaret.Fisher@Kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @MargaretFishr.