Good music and good food makes for a good atmosphere and Shad Kirley wants to bring this to Franklin Street.

Kirley owns and operates the Chapel Hill location of Peño Grill, which opened at 105 E. Franklin St. in August 2019. He wants to make a mark on the town’s dining scene by serving fresh Mediterranean cuisine with a Latin flair. That flair comes from its use of black beans, rice, plantains, avocados, jalapeños and cilantro in otherwise traditional Mediterranean dishes. Peño Grill founder Jamal Haddad is from Lebanon, and all of the restaurants use his family recipes.

“We make everything fresh every day,” Kirley said. “We just make one batch of everything, then as soon as it starts to deplete, we make a new batch.”

The Peño Grill franchise started in Wilmington. Now, there are three locations in Wilmington and eight total locations in the Carolinas. The Chapel Hill Peño Grill is the newest, and Kirley plans to open one in Briar Creek in Raleigh, as well.

As for the name, Peño Grill is inspired by one of their more popular ingredients.

“Jamal was cutting jalapeños one day, and he came up and said, ‘Why don’t we call it peño?’” Kirley said. “So that’s why we call it ‘Peño,’ because we use a lot of jalapeños in our food.”

There’s even a jalapeño over the ‘N’ in the name in the restaurant’s logo, instead of a tilde. That’s one of the many ways that Peño Grill tries to stand out.

“I think Peño stands out wherever it is,” Kirley said. “I haven’t found it in Raleigh, Durham or Chapel Hill, and it’s just a flavor that is something that you crave.”

Kirley found choosing Chapel Hill for his first franchise location to be an easy decision.

He is a self-described ‘die-hard’ Tar Heel basketball fan, so he was excited to open a location right on Franklin Street.

Already, Kirley said he thinks they’ve developed a good customer base with other people who live in the town, and they’re excited for students to return to campus and try Peño Grill out for the first time.

They also plan to join food delivery services like DoorDash and Uber Eats to connect even more people with their food. But the most important thing at Peño Grill, Kirley said, is that the customer is always happy.

“If they don’t enjoy their food, I want to know why, and I want to know how I can fix it,” Kirley said.

Peño Grill is located at 105 E. Franklin St., and can be found on Facebook.

Reporting via Britney Nguyen

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