Wildflower to bloom in spring


The Wildflower Cafe is at the intersection of Breckenridge and Garnett streets.

Exactly three months after it closed with little warning but much fanfare, the Wildflower Cafe will blossom again.

Patricia Newhouse, the owner of Gray’s Gourmet, is buying everything that was the Wildflower — the name, the recipes, the décor — from Bill Coffey and has set April 4 as the date for the reopening of the downtown favorite at the intersection of Garnett and Breckenridge streets.

Coffey closed the Wildflower on Jan. 4, telling The Daily Dispatch that basically he was tired of running the restaurant.

People flocked to the restaurant, open for lunch only on its last day, to have a final Wildflower meal and say goodbye. The restaurant’s demise drew four mournful letters to the editor of the newspaper.

Even in closing, Coffey expressed the hope that someone would purchase the restaurant, which is housed in a wide-open building leased from dominant downtown landlord Rosemyr.

Newhouse answered that hope.

Patricia Newhouse grew up in Maryland but followed her brother and parents in moving south.
Patricia Newhouse grew up in Maryland but
followed her brother and parents in moving south.

“This just seems like a logical expansion for us,” she said in an interview at the Gray’s Gourmet offices on Yadkin Street. She said she has known Coffey and his wife, Michelle, for many years, and they began talking about a sale as soon as the restaurant closed.

They came to an agreement about a month ago, she said, and she arranged the financing through the Kerr-Tar Regional Council of Governments. “I’m ready to stop doing paperwork and start cooking.”

She’ll be cooking with much of the same staff that worked at the Wildflower until January. That includes Donnie Coffey, Bill’s brother, who’ll resume his role as manager and cook.

“It was running like a well-oiled machine, so we’re just going to try to pick up where they left off and run with it,” Newhouse said.

The new Wildflower will be open the same hours as the old — Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. for lunch and Thursday and Friday from 5:30 to 9 for dinner, with rental availability for private parties at other times — and will have basically the same prices for the same menu items.

Signs on the doors of the Wildflower announce its imminent reopening.
Signs on the doors announce the Wildflower’s reopening.

“It will be as close to what it was when they closed as I can get it,” Newhouse said. She bought all of the Wildflower recipes, “so, yes, there will be Key lime chicken.”

She might try some things Gray’s Gourmet does well as specials, but the customers will decide whether she makes any permanent additions to the menu to reflect her tastes.

Those tastes are partial to chocolate and cheesecake, she said. “I like to eat healthy; I just like to end that healthy meal with a dessert.”

Newhouse said she thought about a catering business for 20 years while she worked in retail management before she opened Gray’s Gourmet 7 1/2 years ago. The graduation of the second of her two children from college allowed her to pursue that dream.

The fact that both of her children and her four grandchildren live in South Florida now didn’t deter her and husband John from deepening their commitment to their adopted home of Henderson. She sees a lot of growth ahead for the city, particularly downtown with the Embassy Square project and the possibility of a station for a high-speed rail line.

“We need places to give people a reason to come downtown, and not just food,” Newhouse said.

“I don’t think the economy’s in such bad shape,” Newhouse said. “There are still lines at McDonald’s.”

The Wildflower and other downtown restaurants are part of Henderson’s revival, she said. “Everything that opens enhances the area. I think competition is a great thing. … The trickle effect will enhance everybody’s business.”

She said people continue to eat out because they’re so busy. A place such as the Wildflower has appeal because “it isn’t so prohibitively expensive.”

“I think people are going to be happy to come there and have a nice, enjoyable, casual, relaxing time,” Newhouse said.

The Wildflower “just seemed like the perfect fit” for her, Newhouse said. She had looked for a chance to move into the restaurant business as an outgrowth of her catering company the past couple of years, but nothing else was quite right.

The restaurant and the catering business fit together well. With good staffs, Newhouse said, she doesn’t have to be at either business every minute. “They’ll never know when I’ll pop up,” she joked about her employees.

She emphasized that her purchase of the Wildflower will not change Gray’s Gourmet. It will remain a separate company.

But it’s her new company that has people excited now.

“It’s awesome news,” Downtown Development Commission head Sheri Jones said.

“That is indeed great news” that “such a critical space as the Wildflower” is reopening, City Manager Eric Williams wrote in an e-mail message Friday to Jonathan Care, Newhouse’s attorney.

Those responses are typical of what Newhouse said she is hearing around Henderson. “If everybody who says they can’t wait comes, I don’t know where we’re going to put them all.”