Noble Food & Pursuits is bringing its Rooster's Wood-Fired Kitchen concept to the mountains, with plans to open inside the redeveloped Green Park Inn in Blowing Rock in summer 2027. The announcement pairs a Charlotte restaurant group's first High Country outpost with a long-anticipated rebuild of one of the region's oldest hotel properties, which first welcomed guests in 1891.
According to the Watauga Democrat, Green Park Inn's owners announced a partnership with Noble Food & Pursuits to bring Rooster's to the redeveloped property, with both the hotel and restaurant expected to welcome guests in summer 2027. The Blowing Rock location will become the chef-driven hospitality group's fifth Rooster's, joining existing restaurants in SouthPark, uptown Charlotte, Ballantyne and Winston-Salem, according to the Charlotte Observer.
Jim Noble, who opened the original Rooster's restaurant in Winston-Salem in 1992, said the group had been looking for the right High Country site. “We believe that Blowing Rock is the best place, and the Green Park Inn could not be a better home,” Noble said in a news release. The Rooster's concept combines seasonal Southern ingredients with European culinary techniques, the paper reports.
A Decades-Long Expansion Finally Reaches the Mountains
Rooster's growth in Charlotte has been slow and deliberate. The first location opened in SouthPark in 2006, followed by an uptown restaurant in 2012, according to Charlotte Weekly. A Ballantyne location followed in 2024, marking the brand's first new opening in more than a decade. Noble Food & Pursuits also has another Rooster's location coming soon in Davidson, the Observer notes, on top of the Blowing Rock project.
Beyond Rooster's, Noble Food & Pursuits is a Charlotte-based hospitality group whose portfolio includes Noble Smoke, Bossy Beulah's, The Jimmy and Copain Bakery & Provisions, per Charlotte Weekly's reporting.
What's Rising at the Old Green Park Inn Site
Demolition of the historic Green Park Inn is complete and construction is now underway, the Watauga Democrat reported in earlier coverage. The first phase of development consists of 12 planned condominiums, with the project also including a replica of the original inn designed with a similar color scheme and architecture to the building it replaces.
Plans call for a 40-room luxury hotel, down from the original 88 guest rooms, according to the same report. Indoor and outdoor event spaces, a private wine cellar and a museum are also part of the redevelopment, along with new guest cottages. The Observer describes eight three-bedroom, three-bath cottages, while the Democrat's construction update describes eight cottages; Blowing Rock News says they have two units each.
The 3.35-acre property was rezoned from R-6M to CZ-GB after Blowing Rock's town council unanimously approved developer John Winkler's conditional rezoning application, according to Blowing Rock News. Winkler has said Green Park Inn is an important part of Blowing Rock's history and that the redevelopment will welcome a new generation of guests, per the Watauga Democrat's reporting. The town has described the project as balancing historic preservation with a new hotel, restaurant and expanded event space intended to preserve the property's architectural character while creating a destination for lodging, dining and events.
Construction Squeezes an Already Shifting Visitor Market
The rebuild has already left its mark on Blowing Rock's lodging numbers. Hotel occupancy in town decreased 1.7% during fiscal year 2025-2026, with the Green Park Inn project contributing to 30% of the town's hotel rooms being offline during that period, the Watauga Democrat reported in a separate visitor-spending account. Average visitor stays in Blowing Rock also fell 2.6% to 1.4 nights in 2025, while day trips rose to 32% of visits.
Even so, the broader region kept growing. Watauga County generated $531.78 million in visitor spending in 2025, a 3.1% increase from 2024, according to the same report. Whether a rebuilt Green Park Inn and its new restaurant can help reverse Blowing Rock's lodging slide remains to be seen once construction wraps and the doors open in 2027.
