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Jack Meltsner Words: 926

Fly-On-The-Wall Story November 15th, 2023

Local restaurant fuses fine dining and early 1900s diner cuisine with local ingredients

This Must be the Place! is spelled out in black and white mosaic tiles in the doorway of

Native Fine Diner on Dickinson Avenue in Greenville. The diner is on a quiet block littered with

abandoned tobacco warehouses around the corner from Greenville’s “Intersect East” – a future

commerce hub in a historic train and tobacco district.

At 907 Dickinson Ave., Native’s V-shaped building has housed over three different diners

since the original Carolina Grill Diner was built there in 1903. The spot was a place where

workers hopped off the train and popped in for a cheap bite to eat at a local diner.

Chef and owner Luke Owens is a 6-foot native of Greenville with a long, tamed red beard

that reaches over his collarbone and sits softly on his chest flanked by gauge earrings and

dreadlocks wrapped up in an olive-green headband with tattoo sleeves hiding under his black and

orange ramen noodle hoodie.

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Owens and his wife Brittany gutted and redesigned the building’s interior with plump

booths and contemporary wooden chairs while preserving the worn exterior brick and panel

ceiling, plus the original blue and white support beams from its time as the Carolina Grill Diner.

The restaurant’s triangle shaped dining room merges with the kitchen and bar at a white

countertop base extending almost the entire width of the restaurant. Native Fine Diner opened in

2021, giving Greenville a blue-collar fine dining experience in an area and style central to the

staff’s backgrounds.

“Our vision is to create a hospitable place, a neighborhood feel for Greenville. I grew up

pretty blue-collar and ate diner-ish food anyway,” Luke Owens said. “Whether it was eating at

blue-collar spots or my parents cooking at home, you know, I grew up that way and wanted to

tell that story. I felt that a diner was a great place to tell the story of all types of food.”
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Owens grew up in Greenville and worked for several years at Chef and the Farmer in

Kinston, a restaurant that focuses on bringing local products straight from the farm to the table.

Owens weaves his farm-to-table cooking background into Native’s identity and fosters an

environment of like-minded, motivated employees who share his passion for good food and great

hospitality on a changing menu with local ingredients.

“We want to showcase as many North Carolina products as possible, whether it be meat,

produce or different grains. That helps me dictate the menu along with some really talented and

great people that I work around,” Owens said. “The sous chefs, line cooks, everyone that works

here has a similar drive and want to showcase where we live.”

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In the “Smalls” section of the white menu with orange lettering is a dish featuring fresh

lamb tartare from a local company in Washington, North Carolina on a piece of toast topped with

shaved cheese, fried onions, chives and a broccoli verde sauce served on a round white dish.

In the “Large Plates” section is a rendered duck breast with a pumpkin puree, butternut

squash, pickled rye and a citrusy duck sauce listed just above the phrase…

This Must be the Place!

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Sous Chef Kyle Hobbes prepares the duck dish by peeling and cutting fresh butternut

squash and cooking them on the stovetop before braising them in an oven. Hobbes renders the

duck in a Dutch oven on low heat, producing a crunchy skin over a perfectly tender duck breast

that’s finished with a fermented pumpkin miso puree and a duck sauce with hints of orange.

“The cool thing about [Native] being a diner is we can really make anything we want

from fancy duck dishes to sweet and savory pancakes to chicken sandwiches and everything in

between,” Hobbes said.

Native’s menu has something for every mood and as six o’clock rolls around, customers

file through the glass door transporting them to a different time. Chatter fills the retrofitted

ceiling space and calls from the kitchen are heard as clear as day.

“Can I get a fried chicken sando, banana cream shake and a lamb shoulder?” The expo

manager, wearing a black backwards hat with his sideburns leaking out exclaims.

“Yeah, but I don’t have any lamb sauce up here,” replies the line cook in a white and blue

striped Nautica T-shirt.

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“There might be some by the oven or in the back,” the expo manager says.

“Oh yeah, I’ve got some right here by the oven,” the line cook adds.

The cook hands the lamb dish across the white countertop to the expo manager.

“Hands Please!” The expo manager shouts.

A young woman wearing a Carolina-blue dress shirt with a stack of necklaces underneath

her auburn hair approaches the countertop and grabs two minimalistic plates.

“Table 13, seat one and two,” the manager tells her.

The woman takes the plates and heads off for Table 13. She sets down the dishes to a man

and woman who are presumably on a date.

The couple sits across a tan, oak finished table from one another with the man’s back

facing Dickinson Avenue through a glass window underneath a white spherical light fixture. The

woman sits in a tan wooden chair with a black leather cushion as they enjoy their meals between

laughing and telling stories.

The couple dines for over an hour and heads to the exit around 8 p.m. Clutching onto the

man’s right arm as they walk down the cold and empty concrete street, the woman turns to him

and whispers…

That Must be the Place!

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SOURCES

 Luke Owens – 252-253-2532

 Kyle Hobbes – 252-506-2647

 Elijah Edwards- 919-500-6596

 Intersect East - https://www.intersecteast.com

 Native Fine Diner Menu – 252-508-5005