The old post office at 2 Brook Street is one of the most recognizable small buildings in Biltmore Village. It is now set to become a cocktail bar named after a postage stamp. Penny Black, a bar connected to Chemist Spirits, is preparing to open there. Co-owner James Donaldson confirmed the address to WhatNow. The name comes from the Penny Black, the first adhesive postage stamp, issued in 1840. That fits a building that spent its working life handling mail.
Penny Black is a new bar from a distillery that got its start elsewhere in town, and much of the recovery south of Kenilworth follows that pattern. Many of the businesses filling the Village's storefronts this fall relocated or expanded from somewhere else in Asheville or Western North Carolina. The Village's oldest anchor, the Cathedral of All Souls, is moving slowest because it can't relocate.
The Village Is Filling From the Outside In
At the start of the fall, Kara Irani, executive director of the Historic Biltmore Village Association, described the comeback to 828newsNOW this way:
"That is very indicative of what our recovery has looked like: a real combination of businesses that were here prior to the storm rebuilding and reopening, other businesses in the area coming into the village and adding locations and then just completely new businesses to the Asheville area."
Her three categories are a useful way to sort the current roster. When you sort it, the "coming in from elsewhere" group turns out to be the busiest.
| Business | Where it came from | New Village address | Where it stands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gemelli | Westgate Shopping Center | 28 Hendersonville Road | Opened April 17, 2026 |
| Affogato | New concept from the Gemelli team | 28 Hendersonville Road | Opened June 15, lunch added July 6 |
| Penny Black | New bar from Chemist Spirits, whose Antidote lounge is on the South Slope | 2 Brook Street | Preparing to open |
| Ole's Guacamoles | South Tunnel Road and Black Mountain | 4 Sweeten Creek Road | Renovating the former Moe's Original BBQ |
The other two categories are represented as well. Wink Salon, a Village salon from before the storm, chose to come back to its own Biltmore Village location. Tempur-Pedic, new to the Village, picked 9 Kitchin Place for a flagship store. The food and drink, though, is coming mostly from businesses that had customers somewhere else first.
Gemelli Showed the Move Could Work
Gemelli was the first big test of that bet. The Italian restaurant closed at Westgate Shopping Center on March 30. It reopened April 17 at 28 Hendersonville Road, in the space Andaaz used to occupy, according to Mountain Xpress. WLOS covered the same move.
The team didn't stop at one storefront. Affogato, Gemelli's gelato and espresso café, opened at the same address on June 15 and started serving lunch on July 6, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported. So in under three months, one address went from an empty former restaurant to a dinner spot, a coffee counter, and a lunch stop. That's the pattern Irani described. A business with loyal customers elsewhere in town brings them along, and a quiet block gets daytime traffic again.
A Post Office Becomes a Speakeasy
Penny Black follows the same playbook with a different crowd. Chemist Spirits already runs Antidote, a Prohibition-style cocktail lounge on the South Slope, and the new bar takes its cue from that room. Debbie Word founded the distillery with her daughter Danielle, a chemist. It started with an American Gin made from American botanicals and now makes vodka, single-malt whiskey, barrel-rested gin, and specialty liqueurs.
The post office was always meant to hold more than one business. Mountain Xpress reported in February that the plan for 2 Brook Street included Penny Black, The Parlour, a coffee and tea shop with a casual bar, and a Chemist tasting room and bottle shop. Like Gemelli and Affogato, it puts several reasons to visit at one address: coffee in the morning, bottles to take home, cocktails at night.
Ole's Comes the Long Way Around
Ole's Guacamoles had the hardest route in. Ole and Elena Delatorre opened their family-run Mexican restaurant in Black Mountain in 2007 and later expanded across Western North Carolina and into Tennessee. Helene flooded both the South Tunnel Road location and the Black Mountain restaurant. The family kept serving from a temporary spot at 502 W. State Street in Black Mountain, which opened in November 2024, WhatNow reported.
The Asheville return is happening at 4 Sweeten Creek Road, in the former Moe's Original BBQ space, where renovations are underway. For people in Kenilworth, the Tunnel Road location that flooded was close by. The new one is close too, just on the other side of the neighborhood.
The One Building That Can't Move
Gemelli, Chemist Spirits, and Ole's each got into the Village by choosing a new address, and that option was never open to the Cathedral of All Souls. Richard Morris Hunt designed it, and it was finished in 1896 as part of George Vanderbilt's development of Biltmore Village. It has anchored the neighborhood for 130 years. It has been closed since September 2024, when Helene pushed more than four feet of floodwater and mud into the building.
In May, the Very Rev. Sarah Hurlbert, dean of All Souls, told 828newsNOW that restoring the cathedral and its offices could cost about $10 million. About $4.5 million of that is for the sanctuary, choir rooms, library, and bathrooms. A restaurant can sign a lease on a dry building. A cathedral has to raise money for its own walls, and the money has come in pieces:
- $1.2 million in FEMA and North Carolina disaster relief funding
- $500,000 from the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina
- A $100,000 diocesan disaster relief grant
- An earlier $100,000 grant from the National Fund for Sacred Places
- $886,360 in direct donations and pledges
That adds up to $2,786,360. On November 1, 828newsNOW reported a new $400,000 award from the National Fund for Sacred Places. All Souls was one of 30 houses of worship chosen from 466 applicants. The grant requires the congregation to raise a $400,000 match, and it brings identified funding to almost $3.2 million. That leaves about $6.8 million of the estimate to raise, before counting the match or any insurance money.
The congregation started its "Opening the Doors" capital campaign in September, on the second anniversary of the storm. It hopes to start construction in February 2027 if fundraising allows.
What the Next Few Months Hold
All this explains why the Village looks the way it does this November. The blocks around Hendersonville Road and Brook Street are filling with tenants that brought customers from elsewhere. The building that gave the Village its shape is still behind closed doors, and its timeline depends on donors. The target for starting construction at All Souls is February 2027.
Last season gives a sense of what the Village's holidays usually look like. The association's "It's a Wonderful Village" ran from November 29 through December 31, 2025, with Dickens events on December 6 and 7 and candlelight caroling on December 21, according to the Historic Biltmore Village events page. Closer to home, Kenilworth Park at 79 Wyoming Road has basketball, tennis and pickleball, a field, and a playground.
When a block a few minutes from home changes this much in one year, it shapes how a neighborhood feels day to day, and it comes up when neighbors talk about staying, selling, or helping a friend find a place nearby. If you'd like to talk about how the Village's comeback fits into your plans in Kenilworth, The Mike Miller Team is glad to compare notes over coffee, wherever on Hendersonville Road you like.
