If you have lived in Montford long enough to know which sidewalk squares tilt after a hard rain, you have probably noticed the food scene changing shape this year without changing addresses. The signs are subtle. A new hand-lettered board outside the convenience store. A patio that stays busy past nine. A familiar deli name showing up on a menu in North Asheville. None of it looks like a grand opening. All of it is.
The story worth telling this summer is not that Montford has new restaurants. Plenty of neighborhoods do. The story is that the people opening them mostly already live here, worked here, or are picking up a thread their family put down decades ago. If you walk Montford Avenue on a Thursday night, you are walking through a lineage, not a launch party.
The Convenience Store That Turned Into a Soul Food Kitchen
At 231 Montford Avenue, the front of the building still reads Montford Convenience. Step inside and you will find Sista's on Montford, the soul food restaurant Khiyara and Rhonda Wynn opened in September 2025. It is small, mostly takeout, and it is doing something that matters beyond dinner.
Khiyara's grandmother ran the New Ritz Café in Asheville for 30 years, and the new kitchen is a direct nod to that legacy. WSPA's Rhonda Wynn quoted Khiyara wanting people to know who her grandmother was and to taste what the family had always cooked. That framing matters because the store's opening comes as the Montford neighborhood experiences a resurgence of Black-owned businesses that were displaced in the past. If you live here and have watched the historic district's commercial strip cycle through owners, that context reshapes what a "new restaurant" even means.
The menu is the menu you would hope for from a family kitchen. The signature is the Sista's broccoli casserole, and regulars also come for fried fish seasoned with Goya and Cajun spices and a potato salad made with celery seed instead of celery. Hours are limited. Wednesday through Sunday, lunch and dinner, mostly takeout with outdoor seating when the weather cooperates. Bring cash for a tip and eat on the porch of whoever invited you over.
All Day Darling, Still the Anchor
A few blocks up, All Day Darling has been the Montford Avenue anchor for a while, and this summer it is quietly doing what anchors do: staying consistent while the block moves around it. The restaurant comes out of two-time James Beard Award nominee Chef Jacob Sessoms's Perfectly Ad Hoc hospitality group, which for practical purposes means the kitchen is run by people who have been cooking in Asheville long enough to have opinions about biscuits.
The setup rewards the way Montford residents actually eat. Alfresco on the patio or coffee inside, with daily baked goods, breakfast dishes, salads, bowls, sandwiches, seasonal dinner pop-ups, plus Counter Culture coffee, house tonics, cocktails, draft wines, and craft beers. It is the place you walk to when you do not want to drive downtown and do not want to cook. The seasonal dinner pop-ups are worth watching this summer, since that is where the kitchen tends to show off.
If Sista's is the neighborhood remembering itself, All Day Darling is the neighborhood settling in for the long meal.
When Your Deli Opens a Second Location
Here is the number that tells the story of Montford Deli better than any review. The family-run kitchen served the Montford community for over three years before bringing the same small-batch feel to North Asheville, taking over the Nick's Grill space. That is a compressed timeline for a neighborhood deli to earn enough regulars to justify a second address.
What that expansion means for anyone who eats here is worth interpreting. Restaurants in walkable Asheville neighborhoods usually stretch in one of two directions when they succeed. They either scale up the original into something the block no longer recognizes, or they duplicate the original somewhere else. Montford Deli picked the second route, and specifically framed the move as a thank you to the Nick's Grill family for allowing them to continue serving Asheville. Read between the lines: the Montford location is not changing to accommodate more volume. Your Wednesday patty melt run is safe.
The regulars know. The outdoor seating is plentiful, there is local art on the walls, it is inside or outside seating, and the menu is deep. A sandwich shop that puts local art on the walls and keeps its prices reasonable is a neighborhood asset in the specific sense of that word.
The Rooftop That Borrowed the Name
Some housekeeping, because search results confuse this every year. The Montford, the rooftop bar at 199 Haywood Street, sits at the corner of Haywood and Montford in downtown Asheville. It is a short walk from the historic district but not inside it. If a visiting cousin asks you to meet them at The Montford, you are walking to downtown for the evening. If they ask you to meet them in Montford, you are staying home.
Worth knowing anyway, because the calendar is active. The rooftop is running weekly programming through July, including a Wednesday Ezra Brooks 99 series and Friday nights built around vintage cocktails and a nineties playlist. The mountain views are the draw. The walk back down Montford Avenue after is the reason it feels like your bar.
What Is Coming, and What Is Not
Because half of following a food scene is knowing where not to wait in line, a few honest notes on the broader Asheville pipeline that touch the edges of the neighborhood.
- The Scheffer Group, which operates Gan Shan, Jettie Rae's, and Vinnie's Neighborhood Italian, is opening a casual counter-service spot at 319 Merrimon Avenue in 2026 in the former Musician's Workshop. That is North Asheville, not Montford, but it is the closest new opening to your kitchen door.
- Mountain Madre added a North Asheville location at 791 Merrimon Avenue serving dinner and Sunday brunch, another Merrimon corridor addition worth the ten-minute drive.
- Saffron India Barrel House at 1459 Merrimon Avenue is the old Barrelhouse dive taken over by new owners and turned into an Indian restaurant.
None of these are in Montford. All of them are close enough that if you live off Cumberland or Pearson you will end up at one this summer.
The Through-Line
Look at the four Montford kitchens actually serving the neighborhood this summer and the pattern is hard to miss. Sista's is a granddaughter reopening a family kitchen in a building that had been a convenience store. All Day Darling is a local hospitality group that named itself after the neighborhood in its tagline. Montford Deli is a family operation expanding by taking over another family operation's space rather than building out.
None of these are outside investors testing an Asheville concept. They are neighbors who already knew where the sidewalk tilts.
That is the version of Montford that does not show up on a top-ten list. It shows up on the walk to dinner, when you recognize the person behind the counter and they recognize you back. If you have been here a while, you already knew that. If you are newer to the block, this summer is a good one to start eating like a regular.
Meet Your Neighbors on the Porch
The team at The Mike Miller Team has spent decades watching Asheville neighborhoods rewrite themselves one storefront at a time, and Montford's current chapter is one of our favorites to walk. If you have questions about the neighborhood, want to talk through what living here looks like season to season, or are ready to start your buying or selling journey, we would love to hear from you.
