Sam Hart is thankful that the coronavirus pandemic hit before his restaurant was under construction. Late last year, he had hoped to sign a lease in Dilworth to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant called Anomaly with former business partner Erin Skaryak. The restaurant would be a high-interaction spot where guests would be served a modern tasting menu paired with music, with the meal telling a personal story. 

After Hart and Skaryak parted ways, Hart looked to reimagine a new brand. The words that he used to describe the concept — counter-intuitive, counter-culture — led them to the new name: Counter-. 

Hart was looking for a physical space for Counter- when the coronavirus pandemic hit, forcing a stop to his search for a restaurant. Then, he got an offer from the owners of commissary kitchen The City Kitch — where the prep for Anomaly took place — to use space in their new location in west Charlotte, on Thrift Road. Now, things are moving quickly. 

“We realized that our opening costs would be very, very little compared to what we were looking at before, because they’re bringing all the equipment, the space, the renovations, the utilities, everything on their end,” Hart says. “We don’t even have to worry about that. And so we made it a whole lot easier to re-approach our investors to be like, ‘Hey, instead of having to drop $400,000, it’s only going to take $50,000 to open up this restaurant.”

The Counter- tasting menu will be 10 courses, with each course lasting 11 minutes. Each course will be paired with music, either in a way that tells the emotion behind the dish or something more tangible, like a dish with many textures being eaten alongside a heavily textured musical soundtrack. 

Anomaly kicked off with positive reviews, with most guests being impressed by the novelty of the dining experience. The first menu told a love story. Diners who experienced the first Cafeteria dinner, however, were underwhelmed by the experience — as was Hart. He says he was trying too hard, and tried to do too much, leading to confusion on the execution. According to Hart, it was a lesson in learning to not micromanage and have more faith in his staff. 

“That first night of cafeteria in January, that was just — that was terrible,” he says. “It was the worst food I’ve ever put out. I was embarrassed bringing it to the guests. There’s one course I didn’t even want to bring to the guests.”

After making some much-needed adjustments, the Cafeteria menu began earning some of the best reviews Hart says he’d gotten yet. When Counter- opens, the kickoff menu will be called Terroir, the French word for the environmental components — from soil to sunlight — that go into making a wine’s character. 

“We’re talking about the terroir of Carolinian cuisine,” he says, “going back to the ancient Cherokee, Catawba, Lumbee — the Native Americans that were the first people to cook in North Carolina, to the immigrant populations that came in.”

Hart expects Counter- to kick off service in September, in a dining room with social distancing and high-quality air filtration.

“We know were attempting to pull off a lot, and we’re glad that we had to completely re-approach this during a pandemic because it allowed us to build this restaurant with a pandemic and post-covid 19 in mind,” he says. —Kristen Wile

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