A Spring Day In Greensboro
By Rebecca Woltz, Our State Magazine
March 30, 2023
Where to eat, shop, admire art, and explore the outdoors on a sunny getaway to the Gate City.
Excerpt from the Article
Stay the night at Proximity or O.Henry Hotel
After a full day of exploring the Gate City, check into Proximity Hotel or O.Henry Hotel and wind down for the evening. Both hotels feature art from artist-in-residence Chip Holton, a UNCG master’s in fine arts alumnus. Have a nightcap on the creekside terrace at Proximity’s Print Works Bistro or enjoy one of the 500 wines on offer at O.Henry’s Green Valley Grill. In the morning, both restaurants feature phenomenal breakfasts with dishes like eggs benedict and avocado toast. “You can always take somebody from out of town to one of those restaurants, and they have such a good variety, they can always find something that will appeal to them,” Blevins says. After breakfast, relax in Proximity’s Bluebell Garden or O.Henry’s Cloister Garden before checking out and heading home from a fun-filled Greensboro weekend.
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UNC Greensboro alumnus Tal Blevins has lived in three states and traveled all over the world, but when he decided to move away from San Francisco’s traffic congestion and high cost of living, it was Greensboro’s strong sense of community that drew him back home.
Blevins felt that the Triad city would be a great place to start a restaurant, which had always been a dream for him. In 2020, he opened MACHETE, featuring ever-changing offerings inspired by global flavors. Chefs Kevin Cottrell and Lydia Greene develop new recipes seasonally, then refine the dishes throughout the season — tweaking ingredients, changing the preparation. “We are trying to perfect everything that we do and give everything a little more balance, a little more flavor,” Blevins says.
A meal at MACHETE is just one of the many must-dos on our itinerary for spending a beautiful spring day in Greensboro. Come along as Blevins shows us around his hometown.
Breakfast at Chez Genèse
Your first order of business: cinnamon French toast, quiche du jour, and lemon-ricotta pancakes to kick off the day.
Kathryn Hubert developed an appreciation for French food culture — the time that goes into preparing a meal and enjoying it with good company — while spending a year in the country after culinary school. After returning home to Greensboro to earn a degree in hospitality and tourism management from UNCG, she opened Chez Genèse on South Elm Street, striving to bring the French experience to downtown Greensboro, and providing dishes prepared with the freshest — and fewest — ingredients possible. “We don’t like to overcrowd our dishes with lots of ingredients,” she says. “We really want you to taste the lemon and the blueberry in the lemon-ricotta pancakes, and to taste the cheese in your omelet.”
Explore Downtown
When you’ve wrapped up breakfast, check out the shops, restaurants, and museums along Elm Street near Chez Genèse. Hudson’s Hill makes and sells clothing and accessories, including made-in-house leather coasters, and jeans made in the USA exclusively for the store by HARDENCO.
Grab a coffee in Scuppernong Books’ coffee shop and browse the store’s shelves, which are packed with works by local and national authors. “You can lose a couple of hours in there really easily,” Blevins says.
At the International Civil Rights Center & Museum, see the original F.W. Woolworth’s lunch counter that launched the sit-in movement. “The Civil Rights Museum is always something that, when we have guests from out of town, we either take them there or tell them they need to go down there,” Blevins says. “What a revolution was started right here in Greensboro, and what an amazing piece of history to be able to see and feel and walk through.”
Admire Art in LeBauer Park
Greensboro is one of the best places in the state to experience public art. A short walk from Elm Street, in downtown’s LeBauer Park, 35 miles of fibers, their colors changing every five years, are stretched and draped 60 feet above the grass. The 90-foot-long aerial sculpture, created by artist Janet Echelman and titled Where We Met, billows in the breeze. Look closely: Its fibers span out from the center, symbolizing the rail lines that once connected Greensboro — the Denim Capital of the World — to its surrounding textile mills.
Other works of art that can be viewed at the park include the News & Record bench created by Jim Gallucci out of silicon-bronze sheets of newspaper and magazines in honor of former News & Record publisher Van King; the Peace Haven Community Farm Sensory Wall, which celebrates and engages visitors with sensory disabilities; and Asheville artist Carl Powell’s stained-glass window installation De Dans at the Greensboro Cultural Center.
Continue Your Art Exploration at Greensboro Project Space
Owned by UNCG’s School of Art, the off-campus Greensboro Project Space is a contemporary art space that hosts exhibitions and programs by students, faculty, and community members. “We’re a place where artists that are involved can experiment and explore and try ideas out,” says director Caitlyn Schrader. And with new exhibitions every one to two weeks, there’s always something new to see here. Spring shows and projects include “BLACK: Outside the Box,” a cross-medium exploration of Black experiences by UNCG MFA student Tramaine Wilkes; and “Wardrobe Storytelling,” a community thrift shop in which visitors can exchange articles of clothing accompanied by a story associated with each item.
… and the Weatherspoon Art Museum
Just a quick drive from downtown, your art appreciation continues: With more than 6,000 works representing all major movements from the 20th and 21st centuries, UNCG’s Weatherspoon Art Museum maintains one of the Southeast’s best permanent collections of modern and contemporary art. Works by artists such as Andy Warhol, Enrique Martínez Celaya, and Elizabeth Catlett are exhibited on rotation along with exhibitions of emerging artists and UNCG faculty and students. Spring 2023 exhibitions include “Corporate Disclosure,” a collection of videos by Endia Beal highlighting the challenges faced by Black women in the corporate work environment, and “To Serve the People,” featuring prints created by Mexican artists in the Taller de Gráfica Popular collective in support of their nation’s revolutionary causes.
Grab a Hot Dog and a Treat at Yum Yum Better Ice Cream
After an art-filled morning, head down the street to the iconic Yum Yum Better Ice Cream, established in 1906, for a casual but delicious lunch. “Yum Yum is one of those institutions in town that, man, if it was ever gone, it would feel like a big part of Greensboro was missing,” Blevins says.
Hot dogs and ice cream are the only things on the menu at this cash-only restaurant. Order a red dog Carolina-style — topped with chili, slaw, onions, and mustard — and slide into a booth to enjoy your meal. For dessert, choose from about 20 flavors of ice cream, including banana, pineapple, and butter pecan. Blevins prefers classic chocolate — what’s your favorite?
Take a Stroll & Look for Birds in Peabody Park
When you’ve refueled, explore nearby Peabody Park on the north side of UNCG’s campus. The park, which was established for educational purposes in 1901 and continues to be used for teaching and research, features more than 34 ecologically diverse acres — including an oak-hickory forest, streams, and wetlands — that are perfect for spotting wildlife. Take a walk along the aerial bridge that traverses the forest’s canopy and look for a nesting pair of yellow-crowned night heron in the branches of an oak. Walking at ground level, you might see the red head and polka-dotted breast feathers of a common flicker foraging for ants and beetles on the forest floor. In the park’s Buffalo Creek, look for the belted kingfisher diving for fish. In the Piedmont prairie near the creek, keep an eye out for ruby-throated hummingbirds drinking nectar from wildflowers.
Discover the Greensboro Science Center
The Greensboro Science Center is all about getting in touch with the natural world — earth, sea, and sky. Look for Ralph, the 500-pound pygmy hippo, wallowing in his mud hollow and see a flock of pink Caribbean flamingos eating algae in the zoo. Touch a cownose ray in the aquarium’s touch tank and watch Pumpkin the giant Pacific octopus dance for a crowd. Catch a show in the OmniSphere Theater and learn about black holes and the history of flight. “It is so interesting and so magical to see that we have such a fantastic science center in Greensboro now and how that has expanded,” Blevins says. “It’s just a great experience for both adults and kids.”
Have Dinner at MACHETE
Just two years after opening, Blevins’s restaurant was named a James Beard Best New Restaurant Semifinalist — but it’s not just the food that keeps diners coming back to MACHETE. The vibrancy of the dishes — like the Denver steak with hickory, kohlrabi, and spring onion — is reflected in the atmosphere. “We don’t want people to feel like they have to whisper when they’re in our restaurant,” Blevins says, “Because that’s not how you celebrate life. When you get together and you are having a great meal with somebody, you want to laugh, you want to enjoy yourself, you want to share stories.”
See a show at UNCG
With venues ranging in size from the intimate 130-seat Organ Hall to the 1642-seat UNCG Auditorium, the College of Visual and Performing Arts offers a never-ending schedule of shows by both in-house and visiting performers. See Mozart’s Così fan tutte opera on March 30 or April 1, catch one of the many graduate or undergraduate recitals throughout April, or watch Spring Dances 2023 on April 14, featuring choreography by faculty from the School of Dance and guests. “You get to see talent that is accessible for an affordable price,” says James Goins, University Auditorium Production Manager. “It feels like you are a part of something that’s special.”
Stay the night at Proximity or O.Henry Hotel
After a full day of exploring the Gate City, check into Proximity Hotel or O.Henry Hotel and wind down for the evening. Both hotels feature art from artist-in-residence Chip Holton, a UNCG master’s in fine arts alumnus. Have a nightcap on the creekside terrace at Proximity’s Print Works Bistro or enjoy one of the 500 wines on offer at O.Henry’s Green Valley Grill. In the morning, both restaurants feature phenomenal breakfasts with dishes like eggs benedict and avocado toast. “You can always take somebody from out of town to one of those restaurants, and they have such a good variety, they can always find something that will appeal to them,” Blevins says. After breakfast, relax in Proximity’s Bluebell Garden or O.Henry’s Cloister Garden before checking out and heading home from a fun-filled Greensboro weekend.