Asheville's Food Scene Started With a Hotel, a Colonel, and a Really Good View

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  August 13, 2026

George Vanderbilt came to Asheville in the 1880s, stayed at a hotel with a good restaurant and a better view, and decided to build Biltmore. That hotel, the Battery Park, is where Asheville historian Heath Towson starts the story when he explains how a mountain town in Buncombe County turned into a place people fly in to eat.

Towson is presenting The History of Food in Asheville on Wednesday, August 26, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Hatchworks Coworking on South French Broad in downtown Asheville. Admission is $40 and includes a lunch buffet, drink, and dessert. If you are coming from Waynesville or Sylva, it is a straight run in on US-74 and I-40, about 35 minutes from Waynesville and closer to an hour from Sylva.

What does a hotel from 1886 have to do with Asheville restaurants today?

More than you would think. Col. Frank Coxe built the Battery Park Hotel around 1886, and it was the first building in town with steam heat, running water, and Otis elevators. It also had a real restaurant, which mattered in a place where dining out had not been a thing anyone did.

That set a pattern. Asheville's food scene has always been tied to who was visiting and why. The 1920s brought a building frenzy of houses, hotels, and restaurants as the population climbed and tourists kept arriving. Towson frames the whole thing as city planning and architectural history as much as culinary history, which is a fair description of how food actually develops in a place.

What happened to Asheville's drive-in restaurants?

This is the part of the talk for anyone who grew up here. After the war, the car reshaped the city. The city built Tunnel Road and Patton Avenue for drivers, and Tunnel Road in particular became the strip where teenagers cruised between drive-ins with names people still remember. Buck's Drive-In. Wink's. Babe Malloy's.

Then McDonald's opened on the same road and, over time, put nearly all of them out of business. It is a small story that says a lot about American towns in the second half of the century, and Asheville ran through it fast.

The 1960s and 1970s were leaner. Downtown was mostly government offices, which kept lunch counters busy until 5 p.m. and dead after. The city had not invested in downtown for decades because the budget was going toward debt from the 1920s boom. Asheville did not pay off its last bond from that era until 1976, which is hard to square with what downtown looks like now.

When did Asheville's brewery scene actually start?

Later than the reputation suggests, and smaller. In 1994, Oscar Wong started Highland Brewing in the basement of Barley's Taproom. In 1997, Green Man began at Jack of the Wood. Both are still operating, and both still pull people into the city on a Saturday.

That growth followed the 1980s, when artists and residents began reopening downtown storefronts, renovating apartments in old hotel buildings, and opening galleries. The restaurants came with them. It was not a plan handed down from city hall, it was a slow accumulation of people deciding a vacant building was worth the trouble.

"When folks learn about the history of Asheville, they typically study things like architecture or famous literature," Towson says. "But what about the things that people need to carry on everyday living, like a good meal?"

Why does this matter to the rest of Western NC?

Because the same pattern keeps repeating in smaller form across the mountains. A few people open something good on a quiet main street, others follow, and ten years later the town has a reason for visitors to stop rather than pass through. Waynesville has done it. Sylva has done it on Mill Street. Brevard, Franklin, and Highlands are all somewhere along that curve.

Understanding how Asheville got here is useful if you are trying to read where a smaller WNC town is headed. Downtown vacancy, an artist or two willing to sign a lease, a brewery in a basement, and a decade of patience turn out to be a fairly reliable sequence.

Hatchworks Coworking is at 45 South Broad Avenue, Suite 170, in Asheville, and mountaineermotortours.com has the event details.

If you are wondering which mountain town is next, Jon Tharp is glad to talk mountains and main streets.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

When and where is The History of Food in Asheville lunch and learn?

The presentation is Wednesday, August 26, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Hatchworks Coworking, located at 45 South Broad Avenue, Suite 170, in downtown Asheville. Admission is $40, which covers a lunch buffet, a drink, and dessert. Heath Towson, an Asheville historian and the proprietor of Mountaineer Motor Tours, leads the talk. Registration details are posted at mountaineermotortours.com under the event listing for the lunch and learn. The location sits in the South Slope area of downtown, walkable from most central Asheville parking decks and a short drive off I-240.

How did Asheville become a food destination?

The arc runs longer than most people assume. Asheville's first modern hotel, the Battery Park Hotel, opened around 1886 with steam heat, running water, Otis elevators, and a fine restaurant where locals marked special occasions. A stay there helped convince George Vanderbilt to build Biltmore. A 1920s building boom added hotels and restaurants, the postwar car era filled Tunnel Road with drive-ins, and downtown went quiet after the 1960s while the city paid off Depression-era debt. Artists and restaurateurs revived downtown in the 1980s, and Highland Brewing and Green Man followed in the 1990s.

What was the Battery Park Hotel in Asheville?

Col. Frank Coxe built the Battery Park Hotel around 1886 on a hill overlooking downtown Asheville, and it was the city's first modern hotel. It offered steam heat, running water, Otis elevators, and a restaurant that became the place locals went to celebrate. Its mountain views drew wealthy visitors, including George Vanderbilt, whose stay there led to Biltmore Estate. The original hilltop structure was later replaced by the brick tower that still stands on Battle Square, now residential, and the hill itself was leveled for what became Coxe Avenue and Wall Street.

How far is downtown Asheville from Waynesville, Sylva, and Franklin?

Downtown Asheville is roughly 30 miles west of Waynesville along I-40 and US-74, about a 35 minute drive. Sylva sits about 50 miles out, closer to an hour on US-74. Franklin is roughly 70 miles southwest, about an hour and 20 minutes by way of US-74 and US-441. All three make Asheville an easy day trip for a midday event, which is part of why Buncombe County programming pulls attendance from across the western counties rather than just the city itself.

Is Asheville's brewery scene still growing?

Asheville has more than 30 breweries in the metro area, and the South Slope neighborhood near Hatchworks holds the densest cluster of them. Oscar Wong started Highland Brewing in the basement of Barley's Taproom in 1994, and Green Man began at Jack of the Wood in 1997. Both still operate and still draw visitors. Larger operations including Sierra Nevada in Mills River and New Belgium on the River Arts District side of the French Broad have since added national weight to what began as a handful of local startups.