by TM Petaccia

For Amber Donoghue and Dean Orr, the choice of the name “PostScript” for the couple’s new restaurant wasn’t a random choice. First, there’s the direct connection with the word and how their relationship was built.

“It’s called PostScript because we dated through the mail, snail mail,” Donoghue says. “People ask me all the time where I met my husband,” she says, “and I tell them I literally met him in a lamb pasture.”

That meeting, at a now-defunct chef gathering called Lambstock in rural Virginia, would eventually connect Donoghue, a restaurant consultant and media specialist, with Orr, a chef who had traveled widely to hone his craft. Their relationship unfolded at a distance. Orr was based in New York’s Hudson Valley, while Donoghue remained in Charlotte. While the couple corresponded, they exchanged ideas, philosophies, and business concepts, although neither planned to open a restaurant of their own.

“I was on record of saying I’d never date a chef or open a restaurant,” Donoghue says. “I have broken both of those rules.”

The couple did work together on a project with Asheville chef Steven Goff as he opened Aux Bar in 2019 (now closed). In 2020, the couple again was part of a consulting team for a restaurant tech company. “I was on a work trip in Manhattan with Dean on the ferry from Jersey to New York, and said to him, ‘I want to move to New York.’ That was March 12, 2020. Five days later, the entire world shut down.”

Both found themselves back in Charlotte, Orr working at retirement community Southminster, Donoghue continuing her consulting. Then another setback.

“I ended up getting diagnosed with thyroid cancer,” she says.

Donoghue decided not to tell anyone while undergoing treatment, and the couple just kept working. After long days, they began a ritual of making “Midnight Caesar Salads.”

“Grocery shopping was such a challenge then,” she says. “But Romaine lettuce keeps incredibly well in the refrigerator, we had eggs from a friend’s chickens, we were also baking bread and delivering to people’s houses, so we had leftover bread, and I’m Sicilian, so there’s always anchovies and anchovy paste in the house.”

During these late dinners, conversations would return to restaurant concepts. “We’d be eating the salads and say, ‘If we did do a restaurant — we’re not, we’re definitely not — but if we did, it would be this: Caesar salads, bread bowls of French onion soup, and all of these recipes started coming up.”

Then a chance scroll of a social media post changed everything — again. “I saw Letty Ketner’s announcement on closing her restaurant, and within seventeen seconds, I knew. I sent a screenshot to Dean and he was like, ‘Why are you sending me this?’ We sat down with the Pikes, and then we met with Letty who walked us through the space telling us of all this building’s little secrets and quirks. She walked up to me said, ‘I thought it might have been you,’ because I used to come in here just to hear her stories. She’s such a legend.”

A year and a day after they signed the papers, PostScript opened following a fair amount of remodeling. The menu is a reflection of those dating letters and latenight salad conversations. Both see local sourcing as a key to their business, sourcing produce from Freshlist and Carolina Farm Trust, as well as individual farms such as Barbee Farms and Bush ‘N Vine. “We’re buying the best quality we can and putting it on a plate,” Orr says. “It’s basically food that I love: French, Italian, and American in its bones and seasonally produced. It’s not overly fussed. My goal is that it just tastes good.”

Dishes like Chicken Scarpariello, a melange of chicken, sausages, marinated peppers, and potatoes, is a nod to Orr’s New Jersey upbringing, while others echo the couple’s pandemic-era experiments. The menu is not designed to impress so much as to resonate. “I don’t want to be flashy,” Donoghue says. “I don’t have to be the best fill-in-the-blank. I want to be on your list of restaurants to go to when you want to feel like being taken care of.”

Another personal touch is PostScript’s plateware, all of it spun by Orr, who is a master potter. “I always thought we would fill our cabinets with these in our house, but we’ve done it here at 2121 Shamrock instead,” Donoghue says.

The restaurant has quickly become that for many in the neighborhood. Orr describes the response simply: “The neighborhood’s turned out for us, which we love.”

This is where “PS” has additional meaning beyond the restaurant’s name. Donoghue says it can also stand for Plaza-Shamrock, the neighborhood where the restaurant is located, plus a reference to the space’s origin as Pike’s Soda Shoppe.”

“I cry once a day,” Donoghue says. “We were in this building for a year all alone. Now to see people in here, glasses clinking in celebration; I see people recognizing their neighbors in the dining room and getting up from the tables; and going over to them hugging, slapping them on the back; it’s overwhelming and really humbling.”

Dinner service is just the start at PostScript. During the day, the space hosts Dyad Coffee, and sometime later this summer, the couple are planning to launch a weekend brunch. “As soon as Dean finishes making all the coffee mugs,” Donoghue laughs.

PostScript’s brunch menu will pay homage of to all the restaurants that previously occupied the space, with dishes from the former Letty’s, Foskoskies, and the original Pike’s, including the pecan chicken dish which was featured at each iteration of the location. “Elizabeth Pike gifted Dean a bunch of her recipes. Some of those will be seen at brunch.” The current menu also pays tribute to Letty Ketner with “Letty’s Old Fashioned,” developed by bar manager Erica Bodiker.

The shift from a high-paying corporate gigs to running a neighborhood restaurant has been stark, but Donoghue frames it without hesitation.

“F*** my six-figure salary. What was that doing?” she says. “This is it.”

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