In Memorium: Caro-Mi Dining Room
An authentic country favorite, now washed away.
Tryon, North Carolina
The Caro-Mi Dining Room was one of those very special places from my home in the North Carolina Mountains that I always recommended to everybody because of the very authentic, special, and uniquely local experience that it offered. A friend visiting? We’d go there. In fact, we love it so much that my husband and I held our wedding rehearsal dinner there.
Sitting at the bottom of an otherwise quiet and forested mountain valley, Caro-Mi occupied an old country cabin built in 1945 with a long porch full of rocking chairs facing the river. To access the restaurant, you had to walk across a lovely covered bridge that afforded views of the bubbling stream below. Sitting on those rocking chairs listening to the water is truly the most peaceful waiting room I’ve ever occupied.
Inside, it was like being in a simple country home. Accompanying wooden chairs and patterned tablecloths with banners from colleges that the local kids had attended. I proudly brought them a Yale banner years ago when I was enrolled, and it remained on their wall until recently. There was no menu per se, and it was cash only. You had a choice of entree: some of the best fried chicken my mother ever tried, country ham, mountain trout almondine…served alongside vinegary coleslaw, dense biscuits, green beans, and macaroni salad, followed by a cobbler for dessert. The menu never changed, and the consistency was just what being at home called for: the familiar.
And then came the destruction of Hurricane Helene that gobbled up Western North Carolina just a month ago, an unexpected tsunami washing out valley streams just like the one next to Caro-Mi. Trees washed away in the torrent, as did the bridge. The restaurant itself was moved off its foundation, as were the precious memories and artifacts filling the interior. It is now permanently closed, but the owners aren’t quite ready to give up, recently launching a fundraiser to see if they can resurrect it. Rest in peace, if you must, my longtime nourishing, mountain friend.
Caro-Mi Dining Room - Tryon, North Carolina
After Hurricane Helene:
Photo source: Caro-Mi, Facebook
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