Downtown restaurants give $5,000 to complete concert Kickstarter

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — What do the owners of Front Street Brewery, Fork ‘N’ Cork, Slice of Life and Shuckin’ Shack have in common besides having restaurants downtown? They say they all know how important the Downtown Sundown Concert Series is in the area, so they came together to cover the remaining $5,000 of the concert’s Kickstarter campaign.

“The concerts are great and they’re free,” said James Smith, who owns Fork ‘N’ Cork.

The owner of Slice of Life says those free concerts bring in business.

“On a Friday night the concert series definitely helps out. We get a great group of people before and a great group of people after.”

So when they found out Wilmington Downtown Inc. needed $9,000 to help fund a new venue, or those concerts may not be free, Smith said they were concerned.

“I felt if they were charging for the concerts that we’d probably get less of an attendance,” Smith said.

WDI President Ed Wolverton said they raised only $4,000 of their $9,000 goal just a few hours before their deadline. That’s when he got the call from Smith.

“He said, ‘I’ve been looking for a way to give back and we love events, and I’ve been talking to some other restaurant tours and what if we can get together and chip in to help make it all happen?'” Wolverton said. “So I enthusiastically said, ‘Heck yeah!'”

“I think he dropped the phone actually,” Smith said. “He was pretty excited.”

Wolverton was excited and so was Shuck N Shack Managing Partner Carrie

“It was a no-brainer as far as we were concerned,” . “We were excited about it and happy to help out.”

Because Front Street Brewery Owner Tom Harris said it’s a win-win for everyone.

“It’s a quadruple win,” Harris. “It’s a win for the concert, for WDI, for the people that go to the concerts and for the individual businesses.”

The first concert will kick off next Friday on the Riverwalk. Wolverton said they are not sure when the concert will be moved to the parking lot.