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Another piece of old Raleigh’s character will die as original Char-Grill is bull-dozed

The joy of Char-Grill isn’t just the half-pound hamburger served with grill marks, or the fries so salty they dust your lap, or even the pickles on the chicken sandwich.

The real beauty of the Hillsborough Street burger joint is delivered through its meat-scented rituals, observed with the care of sacred rites:

Filling out skinny order slips with pencil stubs and pushing them through a slot in the window. Standing with strangers while paper-hat crews cook over an open flame that sometimes licks a foot high. Devouring the entire meal in the car, wiping mustard off your jeans.

These are the stations of the burger cross.

And now the downtown Char-Grill, with its red-star sign and its squat grilling hut itself shaped like a crinkle fry, are to be swept away, its lot rezoned for a 20-story building.

Revamped and modern?

Its owners promise their 63-year-old grill will come back revamped and modern, incorporated alongside those shiny new digs, better than ever as a citizen of its high-rise neighborhood.

“This isn’t goodbye at all,” they assured Raleigh. “It’s ‘See you soon.’ ”

The sign for the Char-Grill at 618 Hillsborough St. in Raleigh, N.C., photographed Wednesday, June 29, 2022.
The sign for the Char-Grill at 618 Hillsborough St. in Raleigh, N.C., photographed Wednesday, June 29, 2022.

But anyone watching the slow spread of 20-story office towers, and anyone who ever bit into a char-burger at a red light remains suspicious of the word incorporate.

Char-Grill formed a last line of defense against the steady erosion of Raleigh’s character, and it could never be incorporated into a building that also houses a chiropractor.

“I’m not sure what “Incorporate” means here, but Clyde Cooper’s is still open,” wrote the Twitter critic operating under the name Noisembryo, who referenced the relocation of downtown’s historic barbecue joint. “But I don’t think that things originally from funky, iconic buildings can just be — inserted — into yet another soulless block and have nothing lost.”

Cynics will shrug off the nostalgia for Raleigh’s grittier boulevards — when Hillsborough Street had a bowling alley and a cramped movie theater. But at least back then, nobody had to park in a garage or make a reservation to eat a taco.

Char-Grill, at least on Hillsborough Street, made for a conversation piece — the sort of place you’d take your out-of-town parents, owned by local people and following local traditions.

Cycle Logic. Pipes By George. Phoenix Tattoo. These were other places that stood out, that didn’t exist in other cities, that caught your eye when you drove past.

Raleigh bulldozes history

Raleigh excels at bulldozing its history, witnessed by the near-absence of old buildings on Fayetteville Street — a boulevard that dates to 1792. Without a few easy-to-miss signs, you’d never know Andrew Johnson’s dad groomed horses at Casso’s Inn, or that General Sherman marched through downtown.

North Carolina’s capital has always served as a buffet tray for developers who imagine something taller, slicker and more lucrative. Char-Grill was a morsel waiting to be plucked.

It only takes 20 years for the city to shed its skin — at least downtown.

The Char-Grill at 618 Hillsborough St. in Raleigh, N.C., photographed Wednesday, June 29, 2022.
The Char-Grill at 618 Hillsborough St. in Raleigh, N.C., photographed Wednesday, June 29, 2022.

In 2002, a newcomer would see only a pair of skyscrapers on the downtown skyline, jutting out like a pair of gap teeth. Fresh in town, that newcomer would gravitate to Hillsborough Street, down a PBR on a picnic bench at Sadlack’s, see a show at the Brewery standing only two sweaty bodies from the stage and finish off with a cheap nightcap at East Village — all cherished institutions knocked to rubble.

“The last thing Raleigh needs is another empty mixed-use building,” tweeted Ethan Clark. “There’s literally two across from this Char-Grill that are mostly empty. The economy is slowing; this is a terrible decision. We keep this up, and Raleigh will have no soul left.”

Char-Grill wasn’t the sum of its ingredients, but the whole of the burger experience. El’s in Morehead City wouldn’t be El’s if you couldn’t drive up to it, anymore than Melvin’s in Elizabethtown would be as satisfying without the cashier screaming, “Two all the way!”

And however Char-Grill reappears, it will be a replacement for a part that didn’t need replacing.

In a Raleigh that is running out of landmarks, running short on magic, progress can mean standing still.