ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — A brand-new dining experience will soon bring all-day breakfast to downtown Asheville.
Justin and Layla Neuroth are the husband and wife team behind Färməsē Cocktail Lounge, pronounced “pharmacy,” a speakeasy-style bar that opened earlier this year in downtown Asheville. This summer, the couple will expand their farm-focused, community-oriented approach to downtown dining with Brü, an all-day café offering affordable farm-to-table food, elevated coffee beverages and craft beer.
The Neuroths are aiming to open Brü during the first week of August. The café will be open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. at 5 Biltmore Ave., located above Färməsē in the space formerly occupied by Dilbar.
“Brü is all-day, farm-to-table, breakfast, lunch, dinner American cuisine,” Layla Neuroth described. “Imagine an elevated avocado toast, and pancake tacos, and pastami tacos, and a really good smash burger and good salads. Elevated coffee drinks, like coffee drinks that nobody else is doing here in Asheville.”
Layla Neuroth envisioned Brü as a restaurant to fill a hole in the downtown dining tapestry.
“For us, it was really hard to find a fast-casual breakfast spot here in downtown. Especially when we were building Färməsē, it was like, where do we go just to get a quick bite that’s all-day breakfast?” Layla Neuroth said. “I’m an all-day breakfast kind of person. ‘I want it when I want it’ kinda thing.”
The couple observed that many breakfast staples of downtown Asheville closed early in the day. As someone who work late nights in the service industry, Layla Neuroth explained, that meant breakfast was flat-out unavailable by the time she was ready for it.
“Sometimes, I don’t get up till late, because I work in a bar, right? So maybe I’m up till 4 o’clock in the morning. I don’t get my day started till 9, 10 o’clock. By the time I’m actually hungry, it’s like noon,” Layla Neuroth explained.
“The first thing I want to eat is a breakfast sandwich, and I’m like, I cannot for the life of me find a breakfast sandwich at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. So, our menu is pretty diverse. There’s a lot of interchangeable things that we can go for breakfast to lunch to dinner, so I don’t feel like we have to do a hard cut-off at any given time for any particular item. It’s nice to just be able to offer it all day. I mean, I don’t know how many people are eating breakfast sandwiches in the middle of the day, but, I mean, sometimes we do. It’s just making it open.”
The design of Brü will be a counterpoint to the handsome and low-lit Färməsē. Instead of emulating the bar’s blacks and browns, Brü will be designed to let in as much light as possible, furnished with live plants, white furniture and an open garage door.
The Brü menu, designed by Layla Neuroth, will source its ingredients from as many local farms as possible, such as Hickory Nut Gap in Fairview. The coffee will come from PennyCup Coffee Co. However, despite the organic ingredients and in-house cooking, the couple wants their fare to be as accessible to the Asheville community as possible.
“100% approachable,” Layla Neuroth declared. “That’s the thing with Färməsē as well. I mean, because I make everything from scratch, all the shrubs, all the simple syrups, I do all the clarification here, I source all of my ingredients basically from Whole Foods at this moment, everything is as organic, as fresh as possible. I could rightfully charge $24–25 for a cocktail.
“But that’s not how I want to cultivate relationships with locals, or even tourists. I just don’t believe that’s necessary. I know where my profit margin is and I’m comfortable with that. I want to stay approachable. So, that’s how it’s going to be with the food as well.”
For more information about Brü in advance of its opening, visit www.bruavl.com.