Mecca Restaurant

Founder Nick Dombales named his restaurant Mecca when he founded it in 1930 (no one has disputed its claim as Raleigh's oldest restaurant) because the word means "meeting place." Seven decades and three Dombales generations later, Mecca's dark wooden booths and crackled red counter stools still offer a meeting and eating place for everyone from legislators to lawnmower repairmen. They come for Southern style fried chicken, or for breaded veal cutlet with brown gravy, or for home cooked vegetables such as pepper-spiked turnip greens, black-eyed peas, squash casserole and sliced fresh tomatoes, or just for a jumbo burger and a slice of home-baked apple pie.