Popular Parkway restaurant, lodge face uncertain future
LAUREL SPRINGS (By Lisa O'Donnell, Winston-Salem Journal) - This spring, for the first time since the Bluffs Coffee Shop opened in 1949, Ellen Smith will not be serving up the restaurant's famous blackberry cobbler or fried chicken.
The charming coffee shop, one of the signature stops for thousands of visitors on the Blue Ridge Parkway, most likely will not reopen this spring.
Indeed, the future of the restaurant and its companion lodge at milepost 241 near Doughton Park is in limbo as parkway officials continue to search for a contractor to operate the businesses.
Forever Resorts, an Arizona-based management company that owns and operates several properties in the National Park System, decided last year that it did not want to renew its contract with the parkway. The contract included management of the Bluffs Coffee Shop and lodge, Mabry Mill and nearby cabins, and a store at Crabtree Meadows.
The charming coffee shop, one of the signature stops for thousands of visitors on the Blue Ridge Parkway, most likely will not reopen this spring.
Indeed, the future of the restaurant and its companion lodge at milepost 241 near Doughton Park is in limbo as parkway officials continue to search for a contractor to operate the businesses.
Forever Resorts, an Arizona-based management company that owns and operates several properties in the National Park System, decided last year that it did not want to renew its contract with the parkway. The contract included management of the Bluffs Coffee Shop and lodge, Mabry Mill and nearby cabins, and a store at Crabtree Meadows.
posted by BP News Bureau | 9:45 AM
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