The Mill on MacArthur to Close; New Restaurant Opening There Soon

by Charles McGuigan 03.2023

On February 26 The Mill on MacArthur served up its last meal. But in fairly short order another restaurant, which will maintain the quality of The Mill and its commitment to the community, will open in its place. The new owners, seasoned restaurateurs, are Northsiders. What’s more, most of the staff from The Mill will be working at the new restaurant. And over the years, all of these folks—Amy, Omar, Carrie Jamie, and so many others—have become like extended family to many a Northsider.

Amy Foxworthy, who with Josh Carlton and Chip Zimmerman, opened the Mill over a decade ago says they chose to sell the restaurant because it was time. “We wanted to do something different, but it is bittersweet,” Amy says. “The customers, community and our neighbors have been fantastic, and business has been really good. We bounced back from the pandemic, especially in the last six months. It’s been probably the closest to normal it’s been in years. We have a great staff right now. Everyone working with us is so good at what they do.” 

Which has always been the case. From the very get-go the food has been outstanding and the service impeccable. My kids grew up with The Mill. We ate there for the first time a week after they opened, and over the years have eaten there scores of times and have never had a bad experience or a meal that was anything less than extraordinary. We celebrated milestones there with family and friends—graduation from elementary school and high school, my daughter’s Confirmation—and were always treated as if we had stepped into someone’s family dining room.

Amy and her business partners signed the lease on February 4 twelve years ago, and the place needed a complete renovation. So the very next day Josh began ripping out the acoustic ceiling tiles to expose the ornamental tin beneath it, and six weeks of sweat and toil later they were open for business.

“We are a neighborhood spot, there’s no question about it,” Josh had told me not long after they first opened. “We cater to the neighborhood. My family and I try to eat a little bit healthier than everything being fried or frozen out of a box. And Amy is a vegetarian so we added a lot of vegetarian dishes to the menu. We wanted something more geared toward our lifestyle and what we were looking to feed our children and ourselves.”

Amy then said this, “As soon as we opened the trend toward gluten-free started so we’ve tried to adapt.   And Josh has done a great job trying to find alternatives to cater to those people. Everything is indicated on the menu. So if you have anything that you can substitute, whether it’s non-dairy or gluten-free or vegan, it’s always indicated on the menu.”

God is in the details. And the details of any fine meal are its ingredients. From the moment the first entree was prepared, The Mill used only the freshest and locally sourced ingredients available, from single-source, grass fed Virginia black Angus beef to Edward’s country ham out of Surry. That aspect of the business always appealed to Amy, for she understands that a healthy economy is one that is locally based. “You’re dealing with a family and they deliver directly to us,” she told me eleven years ago. “It’s nice when you can reach out to people who are trying to generate that local business; they actually help other smaller providers in their neighborhood as well.”

And those many years ago Josh said something about The Mill that is just as true today as it was back then. “We’ve always stressed being as friendly as we possibly can because the people we serve are our neighbors,” he had said  “And even if Amy’s not here or I’m not here we need to be represented by people that we can trust and we need to know that they’re treating our customers the way we want them to be treated. We get a lot of compliments from people about our servers.”

“And our food,” Amy had added.

Now Amy tells me this about the new owners who will change the name: “We sold them everything that makes the business run. We believe they’re going to do a good job, and they have the best interest of the community in mind. Which is why we think it’s a good fit.”

The Mill on MacArthur

4023 MacArthur Avenue

(804) 716-1196