AC Restaurants (Ashley Christensen Restaurants)

RestaurantsUnited States201-500 Employees

Ashley Christensen Restaurants is a Raleigh, NC-based restaurant group owned and operated by award-winning chef Ashley Christensen. We seek to enrich and promote positive change in our community through crafting quality food and beverage experiences.

AC Restaurants came into being in 2007, when Ashley opened Poole's Diner, a modern ode to comfort food classics housed in a historic diner. Over the next 8 years, ACR grew to include 5 more establishments. 

In 2011, Ashley opened three new ventures, all housed in a corner building once occupied by a Piggly Wiggly. Beasley’s Chicken + Honey is an ode to fried chicken and classic Southern sides; Chuck’s offers burgers and frites with signature updates; and Fox Liquor Bar, housed in the building’s basement, features a menu of more than 50 craft cocktails, as well as beer, wine and bar snacks. 

In the spring of 2015, AC Restaurants introduced Death & Taxes, a restaurant celebrating wood-fire cooking with Southern ingredients, which was a finalist for the James Beard Foundation's Best New Restaurant award. Death & Taxes was also named one Food & Wine's Best Restaurants 2016, and received Restaurant of the Year 2016 from local restaurant critic Greg Cox. 

ACR has gained national attention from such publications as Bon Appétit, Gourmet, The New York Times, Southern Living and Garden & Gun. Ashley has appeared on Food Network’s popular series Iron Chef America and MSNBC’s Your Business. In 2014, Ashley was awarded the James Beard Award for “Best Chef: Southeast.” Her first cookbook, Poole’s: Recipes and Stories from a Modern Diner, came out in 2016 from Ten Speed Press.

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