King James Public House restaurant in Asheville to expand

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Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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king_james_2_2014Chef Steven Goff of King James Public House said Friday morning that he plans to expand into the space next door to him on Charlotte Street. The space, formerly home to the Foundry, separates King James and City Bakery, which may also expand, Goff said.

Goff said he’s still working out details on the expansion. The new space may just feature small plates. It may feature a little finer dining set up. And King James may share that with City Bakery, which is thinking about growing into the space as well. Stay tuned, Goff says.

Goff hosted a Friday brunch for media types in conjunction with this weekend’s Asheville Food and Wine Festival.

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Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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28 Comments

  1. Jake August 25, 2014

    Clearly KJ is screwing things up if they’re expanding into the space next door.

    Reply
  2. docmcstuffins August 25, 2014

    HauntedHead – Simmer down little feller, I hear the Red Lobster is looking for dishwashers. Sorry it sounds like it didn’t work out for you washing dishes at the King James. Get on down there to the R-Lobster and be the man you’ve always thought you could be.

    Reply
    1. hauntedheadnc August 25, 2014

      I’m curious as to how your mind works. I don’t like a restaurant, so therefore I must have a personal vendetta that involves having failed at a menial job at that restaurant?

      Interesting. From which closet in the mansion of your mind that particular monster spring?

      Reply
      1. JT August 26, 2014

        You did seem to suggest that in order for a restaurant to “keep it real”, the prices need to be low and the portions need to be large.
        Hence the references to Applebee’s and Red Lobster.

        I completely understand how others interpret your voice as poor and angry in this instance. Your mansion comment further supports that.

        Reply
        1. hauntedheadnc August 26, 2014

          That someone would want a satisfying meal for a reasonable price indicates angry poverty perhaps says more about America’s social ills than is probably necessary to discuss here. That you would interpret the concept of a “mansion of the mind” in the same fashion only indicates a failure to understand a basic literary device.

          Reply
      2. docmcstuffins August 27, 2014

        You can “not like a restaurant” and express that opinion without showing an obvious bias that came through your two posts. If I’m wrong that there is some type of personal bias, then one explanation is that you just enjoy being an a-hole. Here are some of your word choices “disgusting, rip-off, exorbitant, unpalatable”

        Are you trying to be Stu, Jr.? At least he puts his name on his reviews, and before you go and respond that DocMcStuffins is not my real name, I assure you that it is. Thank you.

        Reply
        1. hauntedheadnc August 27, 2014

          Ah, I see your problem… you’re mistaking the reasons I disliked the restaurant as “bias.” You’re then using it as a reason to reflect for the rest of us your personal distaste for people who aren’t wealthy; you show it by using it as (and obviously considering it) an insult.

          Gotcha. You seem personally offended that someone might want a filling portion of good food for a reasonable price. How interesting, especially in our bargain-obsessed consumer culture. Almost avant-garde, even.

          Reply
          1. boatrocker August 27, 2014

            yeah hauntedhead.

            poo poo those who hate the Adam Smith method.

            Reply
          2. Mr. Yuck August 28, 2014

            I’m poor now. I cook at home most nights for my Boy and splurge every couple months. My mother was a self-taught Julia Child fanatic and I absorbed as much of that as I could before kitchen duty fell upon me at age 14.

            I will not cook a kidney because it fills the house with “the fine tang of faintly scented urine.” (Joyce) So I was thrilled to find a place this side of the pond with a kidney special on the board.

            If I go out, I do research and choose carefully. I want things that I either can’t or won’t make. I want things I have never seen on a menu. Is that just too highbrow, HH?

            And HH, hating on KJ did kind of give me a mental wedgie. I admit that, but what were you expecting?

            I’ve always thought your comments here were spot-on and I don’t want a food feud.

            Reply
          3. Mr. Yuck August 28, 2014

            Replied to the wrong comment, sorry BR, good to see you up and about.

            Reply
        2. boatrocker August 28, 2014

          Ah, Mr. Yuck, I’m assuming your handle still has something to do with the stickers on cleaning products? Those were always such a tasty addition to my growin’ up cuisine.

          Don’t despair, by the way, no kids here yet but cooking for one’s self and progeny is nothing to be ashamed of. Your little one will someday thank you for feeding him, especially when those food riots occur after Monsanto makes everything taste like Chotchkie’s. (spelling?)

          I only read and comment upon restaurant reviews as I have to be up on this stuff for the rare opportunity to pay for dinner with a local female. Strange how it’s always assumed that I the male will pay for it. Maybe I look rich.

          Reply
          1. hauntedheadnc August 28, 2014

            Mr. Yuck,

            No, it’s not too highbrow at all. Same reason I won’t order steak in a restaurant; I can make that myself.

            I don’t want a food feud either. And for very good reason: I have a secret confession… I like Red Lobster. My mother does too, to the point that she reverse-engineered their biscuits and serves them whenever she has a chance.

            Reply
          2. Mr. Yuck August 28, 2014

            Completely understand you on the steak front. And I did go to Red Lobster a couple years ago and they had seriously upped their game since the eighties.

            What do you order there?

            Have you taken Mom to The Lobster Trap? The first solid food my son ate was a crab cake there. Actually two. With good reason and no teeth. I only meant to give him a taste and then he’s seizing the Crimea and mashing it up with his tongue. He cried when they were gone and I had to haul his ass outside for a bit. Diaper would not hold what came later, and, well, things are better now.

            But I still think about the swan that flew into the car ahead of me 15 years ago and what I could have done with that. It went to waste. Perfectly good swan. At least five feet tall with it’s neck stretched all the way out. A fine roast, just gone. Like tears in rain.

            Reply
          3. hauntedheadnc August 29, 2014

            Mr. Yuck,

            Never taken Mom there, but I did take the s.o. there on our anniversary. She doesn’t drive, so when we eat together, it tends to be in the county where she lives rather than me leaving from Asheville, going all the way there, coming all the way back, noshing, going all the way back to drop her off, and coming all the way back home.

            At Red Lobster, I’m a sucker for anything with crab in it, especially pastas. I can make a pretty good seafood pasta, but it’s more economical to just go and get a plate of it somewhere else. If I really go all out and put everything in it that I want to, my seafood lasagna costs about $60 to put together. It’s a lot easier and cheaper to go get something similar for $20 and change.

            Reply
  3. Food Nerd August 24, 2014

    Love this place. If you want shitty bar food or “normal” food, I’m sure Applebee’s would be happy for your business.

    Reply
  4. Das Drew August 24, 2014

    I’ve been to KJ twice. Came away impressed both times. And oh those duck wings..

    Reply
  5. Mr. Yuck August 24, 2014

    The chicken is incredible. Why the hell 10 people would go to a gastropub when they don’t understand the concept is beyond me.

    Reply
    1. hauntedheadnc August 25, 2014

      Well, don’t fret. We understand the concept just fine now; we understand that the concept is to pay exorbitant prices for small portions of unpalatable food that employs questionable understanding of concepts such as “lox” or “reuben.” We also understand that the concept is to sell what are supposedly identical drinks that somehow fail to look or taste anything alike.

      We further understand that it’s a place best left to pretentious trust-fund ninnies and wealthy tourists. As we actually have to work and live here, it’s obviously not for us.

      Reply
  6. Avl'ater August 23, 2014

    That all may be true but having a bar in the neighborhood other than Charlotte Street (aka the most god – awful hell hole ever conceived) is refreshing.

    Screw “small plates” – cut the foodie bullshit King James and offer up a normal menu at normal prices. Expand your seating capacity and you will rule the hood.

    Sincerely, a local fan who wants a clean, but non-pretentious watering hole in my neighborhood.

    Reply
    1. Sarah August 25, 2014

      You should give Ambrozia a try!

      Reply
      1. smytty August 25, 2014

        Or Avenue M or Asheville Pizza…

        Ambrosia is also fairly pricey and the tables feel like you are right on top of one another. Not my idea of a comfortable environment.

        Reply
      2. Avl'ater August 26, 2014

        I can walk to King James. I’m sure those other places are awesome, but I’d have to drive. No Bueno after 5 gin & tonics! (Just kidding… or am I)

        Reply
    2. Mr. Yuck August 27, 2014

      Anyone else remember when Charlotte Street had an upstairs dining room that was someplace you could take the visiting in-laws? And a kids menu that rocked?

      They didn’t have weird food, but the specials were amazing.

      What happened? I know about the recession.

      Reply
      1. Avl'ater August 28, 2014

        Charlotte Street is where you go when you hate yourself and even Broadway’s is too clean. At last call you order up three shots so you have enough to get you through to 2:30 when you go home and wallow in the self loathing that has become your miserable forsaken life… and that’s when you’re having a good day. It’s never been great, but when it’s current asshole owners purchased it, Charlotte Street descended below the lowest pit of hell to a domain covered in piss, shit, and filth that would make the 1970’s Era Bowery in NYC resemble the garden if Eden.

        Reply
  7. Jank August 23, 2014

    we’ve had a decent time there, some local folks in there that cussin’ up a storm at the bar on time, enough with the f-bombs at 530pm, I know you’re blowing off steam after work, but hold back a little.
    drinks were not consistent, ordered same whiskey drink in my 2 visits and they tasted nothing alike.
    won’t be going back there anytime soon.

    oh yeah, I agree- foodies love that god awful menu.

    Reply
    1. Montfordresident August 23, 2014

      What the fuck does your non-sensical, poorly written, self-contradictory comment even mean?
      Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck….right Stu?

      PS. It is 11:00 am, so f-bomb away

      Reply
  8. hauntedheadnc August 22, 2014

    I can’t imagine why there’s a need to expand. The one time I went there was enough; the menu featured a choice between things that were weird, things that were disgusting, and the ever-popular things that were a screaming red rip-off, such as the $6 “handful” of french fries with nacho cheese. Even the drinks were inconsistent. I would also like to know on which planet fried chicken might be worth $18. I don’t care if they sprinkle the damn chicken with platinum dust before they fry it, but there is no fried chicken on this earth that’s worth eighteen bucks.

    Never again. I was with a group of ten people there, and most of the dinner conversation revolved around where we could go afterward to get some actual food.

    Reply
    1. boarocker August 22, 2014

      Ahhhhh, don’t talk like that!

      The tourists run for the hills!

      Reply

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