The Lunch Box brings a different taste downtown

MONROE — The 10th restaurant in downtown Monroe is banking on two things to set it apart: Fried Southern classics and delivery.

Monroe’s newest downtown restaurant, which opened Nov. 23, offers down-home choices like chicken, pork tenderloin and trout fried in peanut oil. It also offers grilled chicken, a number of sides and hamburgers, all served in to-go containers.

“Monroe needed something different,” owner Mike Wright said of why he decided to open his first restaurant. “It needed more choices.”

Wright said that when he was preparing the menu, he took all of his favorite menu items from his lunchtime haunts. He mentioned South 21, which he said has “the best trout I’ve ever eaten,” and Price’s Chicken Coop.

Cook Will Womack, 27, said Friday was the restaurant’s busiest day; the restaurant sold 100 plates by lunchtime.

Womack credits the steady increase in business to the quality burgers and the fact that it’s the only fried chicken place in the downtown. Those items are the restaurant’s biggest sellers thus far, he said.

“People are saying it’s something different,” said cashier Shannon Blankenbeckler, 18. “They go back and forth between here and hot dogs” at The Oasis Restaurant across the street.

And if its growing reputation doesn’t beckon would-be customers, Wright has hung a traffic signal in the window.

“It’s mostly to grab some attention,” he said. “We put it up for people riding by in the evening since we haven’t really advertised yet.”

Building owner Scott Vickery added a new facade to the building at 109 S. Main St., as part of a $4,000 matching grant he received from the downtown Monroe revitalization funds. Vickery said the facade cost around $12,000.

In addition to the new facade and the traffic light, Wright said the restaurant sets itself apart by offering delivery.

“We’re simple but we’re good,” he said. “We try to be as quick as we can.”

Lynn Blessing, whose Blessings Cafe is another newcomer to the downtown restaurant scene, said speediness will serve Wright and his crew well.

“People in downtown are in a rush. They need to be able to eat quickly and get out,” she said.

Blessing said her business has seen a slight dip since the Lunch Box opened but she expects that when new restaurants open because people want to try new places.

“There’s not one person alive that wants to eat the same thing every day,” she said. “There’s enough people in downtown that businesses can thrive as long as you have quality food. We wish them well.”

To place a delivery order at the Lunch Box, call 704-283-8999. Wright said delivery — which is available throughout the city — takes an average of 25 minutes and the restaurant requires a $20 minimum for delivery; deliver is available outside of Monroe city limits for orders of more than 15 boxes.