Bull City Burger & Brewery, the Durham restaurant long known for its grass-fed burgers and duck fat fries, is expanding beyond its downtown Parrish Street home for the first time in its 15-year history. The new outpost is headed to the Latta Park development on Guess Road in North Durham, with an opening targeted for the first quarter of 2027.
Owner Seth Gross said the move answers years of requests from residents north of the city. As reported by the News & Observer, Gross said north Durham residents have long asked the restaurant to expand in their direction, and that the new spot, dubbed Bull City Burger Outpost #1, is meant to be a family gathering place featuring burgers, beer, a patio, soft serve and a play area. The 2,700-square-foot space is planned with 65 dining-room seats, 12 bar seats, an outdoor patio and a small turf playground, according to the same report.
Latta Park itself is a 30-acre mixed-use development designed by Crosland Southeast, combining 176 townhomes with 20 acres of green space, multi-use trails and a 10-acre retail center. That retail hub is anchored by a 42,000-square-foot Publix that held a hiring fair earlier this year, and the News & Observer reports the development also includes a Chipotle. Crosland Southeast representative Austin Williams said Latta Park welcomes the Bull City Burger outpost to its retail mix, per the News & Observer's reporting.
From One Taproom to a Second Storefront
Bull City Burger opened its original Parrish Street location in 2011, where it still runs an 8-tap microbrewery supplying beer to the restaurant and some Durham bottle shops, according to the restaurant's own site. That flagship space spans roughly 90 indoor seats and 50 outdoor patio seats, and includes a children's play area, per details listed on a producer profile cited in the brand's background materials. The new North Durham outpost won't include on-site brewing, but it will keep the same style of burgers and fries that built the brand's reputation.
The kitchen's approach has always leaned on scratch-made sourcing. The restaurant uses 100% pasture-raised North Carolina beef free of added hormones and antibiotics, grinding meat fresh daily and baking its own buns, according to a profile from Enterprise League. Bull City Burger makes everything in house except the ketchup, the News & Observer notes — a detail that raises an open question about how the smaller Outpost #1 kitchen will maintain that same from-scratch standard without the flagship's full brewing and prep infrastructure.
New Menu Items and a Recent Shake-Up
The North Durham location will expand into breakfast, serving biscuit sandwiches and coffee-bar drinks alongside its usual burger lineup, the News & Observer reports. That addition marks a notable departure for a restaurant that built its name on dinner-hour burgers and brewpub culture downtown.
The expansion comes after Gross trimmed his broader restaurant group. His company, Pie Pan Inc., previously operated Pompieri Pizza and Bull City Solera and Taproom in addition to the burger brand. Pompieri closed in December 2023 due to lease costs, and Bull City Solera and Taproom shut down in January after five and a half years on University Drive, according to INDY Week. Gross retained ownership of the University Drive building following Solera's closure, the outlet reported.
A Reputation Built Over 15 Years
Bull City Burger has collected accolades well beyond Durham's city limits. Travel publication 5 Reasons to Visit named it the best burger in North Carolina this year, pointing to its farm-to-table practices and small-batch brewing. News & Observer readers also named it among the best restaurants in the Triangle this year, and Hoodline previously ranked it the top burger spot in Durham back in 2019 based on customer reviews.
The restaurant also carries a notable sustainability pedigree: it was the first Certified B Corp restaurant in North Carolina and the first Certified B Corp brewpub in the world, a distinction tied to practices like converting spent brewing grains into livestock feed and turning fryer oil into biodiesel, according to the Arc Benders profile of Gross. Every April, the flagship also hosts its Exotic Meat Month, a lottery-based event featuring python, alligator and its viral Tarantula Burger, as INDY Week has documented over the years.
Growth Pressures on Guess Road
The Outpost #1 opening lands amid a broader building boom in North Durham. Durham City Council approved the 90-unit Preserve at Infinity housing project on 15.8 acres near Latta Park earlier this year, part of a wave of residential growth along the Guess and Infinity Roads corridor that Hoodline has tracked in its coverage of rezoning debates over density. To address traffic concerns raised during Latta Park's own rezoning process, Crosland Southeast has committed to multimillion-dollar road improvements along Guess Road, including dedicated turn lanes and upgraded sidewalks.
Whether those infrastructure upgrades keep pace with the growing retail and residential footprint around Latta Park remains an open question as construction continues. For now, Bull City Burger says it will post updates on its progress at bullcityburgeroutpost.com ahead of the planned opening in the first quarter of 2027.
