Restaurants in Mebane

Peruse the menu and start your barroom tongue brawl with an appetizer of the pub's loaded fries (french fries with cheese and bacon, $6.95; add homemade chili for $1); fried or grilled wings with mild, hot, or teriyaki sauce (one dozen, $9.50); or fried-chicken tenders ($7.50). Lunchtimers routinely find solace in an order of the pub's fish and chips (beer-battered cod with the pub’s fried potato chips, $9.95) and the North Carolina barbecue-pork platter, with french fries, coleslaw, and hushpuppies ($9.95). For dinner, try the barbecue rib platter (half rack $10.95, full rack $20.95) or an avocado and tomato quesadilla ($11.95), or stick with a classic from the sandwich menu such as the oyster po' boy (fried oysters with coleslaw or Cajun rémoulade in your choice of a hoagie or wrap, $9.95).

With a Southern-tinged contemporary menu that garners ample praise, including a Forbes Four-Star award in 2012 and a AAA Four Diamond rating in 2012, Carolina Crossroads Restaurant wafts gourmet aromas throughout the surrounding structure of the historic Carolina Inn. Executive chef James Clark merges Mediterranean and Italian influences with indigenous Southern fare to fashion locally sourced ingredients into innovative dishes for breakfast, brunch, lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner. Beneath grandiose curtains and shimmering chandeliers, the restaurant's bold blue floral-patterned chairs and banquettes flank white-linen-topped tables, which support succulent seafood, juicy cuts of steak, and the occasional miscreant elbow.

Six Plates Wine Bar minimizes customers’ food indecision with a concise menu that pairs six upscale small plates with six wines by the glass. Despite the menu's diminutive size, there's no lack of variety—the foodies in the kitchen constantly swap out dishes to make use of as many local ingredients as possible, while a clipboard bears a list of more than 150 wines, and 30 beers, sold by the bottle. Mentioned in the New York Times for its use of local food, Six Plates Wine Bar puts an upscale take on comfort foods with its plates, which are about half the size of a traditional entree.

Six Plates Wine Bar's resident wine lover, Matthew Beason, curates a wine list that hails from around the globe—from behind the bar, he'll recount the tale of his first wine love, a 1995 JL Chave Hermitage Blanc that broke his heart when it eloped with a bottle of Boone’s Farm. Each glass romances tongues beneath crystal-drenched chandeliers in the warmly lit dining room, where eclectically framed vintage photos and mirrors share space on exposed brick and deep-amber walls. Diners can recline on red-upholstered armchairs, at the bar, or at intimate, candlelit tables flanked by backed barstools.

In 1978, Kyriakos Kalfas and his wife Ralitsa opened Spartacus Restaurant in Huntington, New York, taking after Ralitsa’s father, who had opened a cafeteria in Winston-Salem after returning home from WWII. In the early '90s, the Kalfas were drawn back to North Carolina and opened their own establishment in Durham. Since then, the restaurant’s menu has continued to pique appetites and garner praise—its tzatziki-covered lamb kebabs and flaming saganaki helped the eatery earn a Best of the Triangle award from Indy Week in 2011. Guests can dig into these eats, along with items from a sprawling lunch buffet, under the glow of the bar's three TVs, or they can take their meals outdoors when the patio opens in the spring.