A common fact Elon University students boast about is that the city of Burlington has the highest concentration of restaurants per capita in the entire state of North Carolina. This information is on a Wikipedia page under the category of “Food,” but there are no other sources that back up this claim.
According to the Restaurant Growth Index (RGI), in 2015 Burlington had a total of 341 restaurants for a population of 155,283. The RGI rates Burlington as the 154th best place for potential restaurant growth. This statistic may not seem very impressive, but this may be the lack of room for growth in this industry for the city of Burlington.
It isn’t typical for such a small town to have so many restaurants. But Burlington has to feed important customers – hungry college students.
“My roommate and I frequently go to Mike’s Deli, and it’s really nice because it reminds me of home,” said junior Julie Newton. “I also love Mykonos Grill. It tastes just like the food I ate in Santorini when I studied abroad last semester.”
Students don’t live the Elon experience without going on a Cook Out run at least once, and the Golden Dragon Asian Bistro take-out is an Elon crowd favorite for those who don’t want to leave their dorms.
Businesses notice that college students get hungry quickly and want an out from their food choices on campus. The growth over the years of restaurants in Burlington is unsurprisingly correlated with the growth in number of students enrolling at Elon.
Burlington’s zoning administrator Joey Lea agreed that Elon’s students are essential to the success of restaurants in Burlington. He did not have access to the exact number of restaurants that currently exist in Burlington but estimated that Huffman Mill Road and University Drive are the streets with the highest concentrations of restaurants.
“We do have a lot of restaurants [in Burlington], but it’s a puzzle to me whether Burlington has the most restaurants per capita in North Carolina, especially looking at Raleigh and Durham,” Lea said.
Lea explained that restaurants can be opened in the city of Burlington in most commercial and industrial districts.
Section 32.6-B-2 of City of Burlington Zoning Ordinance states that “general commercial districts are established to provide areas for a wider variety of commercial and service establishments.”
Burlington’s Planning and Zoning Commission meets monthly to discuss rezoning, subdivision and layout requests before sending their recommendations to City Council.
It’s Lea’s job as zoning administrator to ensure the commission upholds the standards reported in Burlington’s zoning ordinance. Section 32.16-A also says no excavation can commence, no building can be erected, altered or moved and no wall or fence can be built $100 in cost until a building permit has been issued by the Building Inspector.
In terms of making decisions on whether restaurants would be useful in certain areas of Burlington by location and demographics, Lea said that this is more the job of market entity developers who are separate from the commission.
Zoning enforcement officer, Chris Marland said a restaurant must simply check in with the commission to ensure it is zoned properly and has enough parking before it can start construction.
Marland affirmed the Wikipedia claim about the high number of Burlington restaurants but is not aware how many are currently in operation.
“I know we have more fast food restaurants per capita than anyone in the nation. I read that in an article about a year ago on USA Today,” Marland said.
There is currently no valid source affirming this claim, including from USA Today, but across the Internet there are several websites using the statistic as a selling point for the city.
Another piece of data from the County Business Patterns that was compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau for 2012 shows Charlotte as the top North Carolinian city in restaurants per capita, with 7.2 per 1,000 citizens. Raleigh followed Charlotte with the approximate same data.
With regards to the future of restaurant businesses in Burlington, Marland sees a potential growth in this market, especially considering the continued growth of Elon’s student population each year. With the initiative of the university to increase its size indefinitely, students can dream of potential chains coming to Burlington such as Chipotle, P.F. Chang’s or even a fourth Chick-fil-A.