Southern Season, the Chapel Hill-based gourmet goods retailer, plans to open a store in Wilmington, despite recently filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
 
The Wilmington location will be part of a series of smaller stores known as Taste of Southern Season. Jill Lucas, spokeswoman for the company, confirmed that a Wilmington location is slated to open by the end of this year. The company did not announce the store’s location.
 
Founded in 1975, Southern Season specializes in gourmet foods, cookware, gift baskets and wine. The store also offers a cooking school that has hosted numerous celebrity chefs. The bankruptcy filing is part of the company’s strategy to close its larger stores and refocus on small boutiques according to the Triangle Business Journal.
 
Brian Fauver, the company’s chief financial officer told the Triangle Business Journal, “These stores, they’re versions of the larger format store, but they’re in a smaller format with lower operating costs.”
 
The 60,000-square-foot flagship store in Chapel Hill will remain open under the current restructuring, but stores in Richmond, Virginia, and Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, will close. Fauver told the Triangle Business Journal that the full size stores have become too expensive to run.
 
The company has Taste of Southern Season locations in Raleigh’s Cameron Village and downtown Charleston. Taste of Southern Season will open in Asheville next week, and a Southern Pines location is also slated to open by the end of the year.
 
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