Long time fans of Uptown’s Chicken and Waffles were up bright and early the morning of June 24 for the grand opening of a new sister restaurant located on Murchison Road, The Ville Wings & Bar.

For the restaurant’s team, opening time was go time. With a line waiting before 11 a.m., it was straight to work with staff members immediately seating, serving and taking to-go orders as soon as doors opened.

Fans of Uptown’s Chicken and Waffles will recognize the team behind the new culinary addition to the city, located at 1911 Murchison Road. Uptown’s Owner, Chef Judy Cage (Chef Judy) and Co-Founder Rashawn Moore have expanded their business with this new sister restaurant.

“Not only do we have delicious wings, but we’re going to have such an amazing bar, great people, great food, great fun. What more can you ask for on Murchison Road,” shared Judy. “We look to get better at every location, so the goal here is to go over and really wow the customers on that side of town. I’m excited about that.”
Some of the unique wing flavors now featured on the menu include honey chipotle lime and raspberry jalapeno glaze.
“It’s going to be the best wings in the ‘Ville. We’ve got 20 different flavored wings, so everything that you could think of, and Judy has come up with some great wing flavors,” shared Moore. “We’re bringing back our Fayetteville famous fried pickles, so it’s going to be a really good spot for lunch and dinner. We’ll be open five days a week over there. We’ll be open Tuesday through Saturday.”
Chef Judy also added that the menu and entrée names are paying homage to the city’s culture and the community that has shown unwavering support for Uptown’s over the past five years.
“We have two chicken sandwiches that we know are going to blow their socks off. One is called “The Scholar,” and this one has lettuce, tomato, a golden barbecue sauce, brown sugar bacon and Chipotle ranch on buttered toast. And then we have one called “The Dropout,” shared Chef Judy. “The dropout has pickles, hot honey, coleslaw, ranch, it’s delicious, but at the same time, it’s messy, and it’s fitting for a dropout. Sometimes during that dropout season, it gets a little messy, right? We’re super excited.”

Regulars at Uptown’s Chicken & Waffles are already familiar with the restaurant space, as the Uptown’s team temporarily relocated there in April of this year while renovations to the kitchen floor were being done at their original location at 1707 Owen Drive in Fayetteville.
“We literally opened up another restaurant in less than seven days. It actually took us five days to get that restaurant up and moved over. We literally had to move everything out of our kitchen here on Owen Drive to move it to Murchison Road,” shared Chef Judy.
“They had to repair the floor completely. Literally, you could walk in and look down and see the bottom. They pulled the whole floor up, redid the plumbing, redid drain lines and everything. During that time, we weren’t going to be able to use the kitchen at all. So it was either, we shut down for three to four weeks, or we figure something out,” shared Moore.
“We have over 38 employees on payroll, and that’s a lot of mouths to feed. It was important to us to make sure we would be able to gainfully employ the staff, so that they wouldn’t lose out on income,” shared Chef Judy.
Before finding the location on Murchison Road, previously a restaurant called Henley’s Vintage Kitchen, Moore shared that they had looked into other options including a mobile kitchen, and food truck. Luckily they were able to lease the space and switch to food only and to-go orders during renovations.

Along with facing the challenge of moving day for an entire restaurant, the owners also had to put in time, funding and elbow grease to renovate their new location. Before even deciding to put in a whole new restaurant, staff made improvements to the HVAC system, plumbing, toilets and more.

“It was a time, but it was worth it. We wanted it to be right. We didn’t want people to come and be like, ‘Oh, they just threw this together.’ We want people to feel like you’re still at Uptown’s, even if it’s a smaller version,” shared Moore.

“I hope that customers feel the love and care that we put into it, because we do care. And that was the goal, not to just throw it up as a pop up restaurant,” shared Chef Judy. Now, what was a temporary solution will now be a permanent addition to Murchison Road.
“I am super stoked about this,” shared Chef Judy about the new location. “We’re going to utilize the patio area over there as well, because we want people inside and outside. We just want to make so much noise on Murchison Road that you can’t help but notice something’s going on over there.”

The Ville Wings & Bar is open Tuesday to Thursday, 11 a.m.- 8 p.m., Friday to Saturday from 11 a.m.-10 p.m. and will be closed on Sunday and Monday.
Learn more about The Ville and see their full menu and updates at www.facebook.com/thevillewings.