Beasley’s Chicken + Honey will close after 14 years at Wilmington & Martin. Ownership cited post-pandemic shifts in downtown dynamics and changing foot traffic as key factors, despite strong food quality and brand recognition.
Real estate takeaways:
🔹 Urban cores continue to reset
• Not all legacy concepts align with today’s downtown usage patterns
• Location viability is increasingly model-dependent, not brand-dependent
🔹 Space remains valuable
• Prominent corners still attract interest, even as concepts change
• Closures often lead to repositioning rather than long-term vacancy
This reflects adaptation, not abandonment.
Downtown retail continues to evolve alongside how people use cities.
