Merritt's Grill, the nearly century-old Chapel Hill sandwich shop famous for its BLT, has opened a second permanent location inside the clubhouse at UNC's Finley Golf Course. The new spot, which opened to the public in late July, sits about five minutes from the original store and offers something the South Columbia Street location never could: real indoor seating and air conditioning.
The original Merritt's Grill, located at 1009 S. Columbia St., seats only about 20 people indoors, plus 50 covered seats out front, according to The News & Observer. The new location at 500 Finley Golf Course Road, just over a mile from the Dean E. Smith Center, fits roughly 60 people inside and includes a patio and other outdoor seating areas. Co-owner John Toogood told the paper the new spot offers more air conditioning, indoor seating, and covered seating than the original ever had.
Merritt's traces its roots to the 1920s, when it started out as a gas station before becoming known for sandwiches more than three decades ago. The shop's signature BLT, often called the “Love Sandwich,” was created by former co-owner Robin Britt as a packed lunch for her husband Robert before the couple introduced it to customers after converting the 1929 gas station into a full restaurant in 1991, according to Garden & Gun. Robin and Robert Britt ran Merritt's for 30 years before selling the business.
A Kitchen Built for the Crowds
Demand for that sandwich has long outpaced the original building's footprint. Merritt's sells about 2,700 BLTs and goes through roughly 2,200 pounds of bacon weekly at its original location, a volume that previously forced management to set up dedicated express lines just to manage wait times that could stretch up to an hour during peak periods, per the same Garden & Gun account.
The Toogood family bought Merritt's Grill in September 2021 to keep the Chapel Hill institution running. Before taking ownership, the Toogoods had supplied the restaurant's sourdough and other breads for more than a decade through their Pittsboro bakery, The Bread Shop, according to Carolina Alumni. The acquisition followed former manager Claudia Palacios's transition out of restaurant operations. Toogood told The News & Observer that the new Finley location offers the same service and food as the original, with the menu expected to stay mostly the same, though it does introduce a regular ballpark-style hot dog topped with mustard alongside a second, more portable hot dog option — a departure from the original store's chili-topped dogs.
Why UNC Athletics Wanted In
The Finley Golf Course clubhouse is an 18-hole public course owned by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It reopened in October 2023 following a year-long overhaul designed by Davis Love III's Love Golf Design, which reconfigured holes, converted 16 acres into a practice facility, and installed Tif-Eagle Bermuda greens, according to Campbell University Athletics. The course was originally designed by George Cobb when it opened in 1950 and underwent a complete redesign by architect Tom Fazio in 1999 before its most recent renovation.
Rick Barakat, UNC Athletics' deputy athletic director and chief revenue officer, said the department was excited about Merritt's quality and its Chapel Hill roots landing at Finley. Golf club general manager Rob Jeske said the clubhouse gives customers an indoor dining option during winter or hot summer weather that wasn't available before. The new Merritt's plans to experiment with dinner service and Sunday hours, running 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. daily and closing on Tuesdays — a schedule the cramped original location was never built to support.
A Brand With National Reach
Merritt's reputation extends well beyond Chapel Hill. People magazine named its BLT with pimento cheese on sourdough the best sandwich in North Carolina in 2019, and food outlet The Takeout featured the sandwich as its North Carolina pick in an April state-by-state guide highlighting the shop's local cult following. Southern Living also once listed Merritt's Store & Grill among its top cheap eats in the South, spotlighting a triple-decker BLT once priced under $10.
Merritt's has served sandwiches at the U.S. Open golf tournament in Pinehurst and near UNC football games, and it earned an honorable mention in The News & Observer's 2026 Triangle Top 50 restaurant list, ranking among the top 20 local places to eat a sandwich. Back in 2018, Hoodline ranked Merritt's second among Chapel Hill's top affordable sandwich spots based on Yelp review data, citing its pimento cheese, barbecue, and BLT options at a time when the original location held a 4.5-star Yelp rating across hundreds of reviews.
Beyond BLTs, Merritt's also serves breakfast sandwiches, salads, and burgers. The Finley location uses a fully equipped kitchen, a step up from the original building's tighter setup, and represents Merritt's first expansion into a second restaurant in the Triangle. Co-owner John Toogood has previously spoken about wholesale inflation pressures facing Triangle eateries, telling Chapelboro in 2024 that sustained high commodity costs, affecting both bread production and pork products, required price adjustments across his Chapel Hill and Pittsboro businesses.
