Ox & Rabbit to open on Ninth Street on Thursday

This past Sunday, while prepping for our "Shooting the Bull" radio show, Barry and I happened to walk by the "Ox & Rabbit" storefront in Ninth Street, where the construction paper still covered the window, but where the screen-printed lettering emblazoned on the windows now proclaimed the forthcoming arrival of the store, which has been described as a soda fountain-cum-sundries shop.

Located in the pad once occupied by a longtime Ninth Street institution, McDonald's Drug Store, Ox & Rabbit has promised since late 2007 to feature everything from sweet, tasy treats to housewares, clothing, and all manner of other goods.

Looking at the storefront, I noticed the windows above the front door weren't obstructed, but simply were higher than any Durhamite (save possibly a Duke b-ball team center) could reach to peek through. Though not so high as to be unable to stand on one's tiptoes and photograph the Ox & Rabbit's innards via one's smartphone, natch. Still, I hesitated to post spy-photos of an unopened business. It just ain't good karma.

Well, the good word making its way through local listservs is that Thursday May 29 will in fact be the day that Ox & Rabbit opens its doors to the public at large. No word on precisely what their hours will be as of yet, but expect crowds of the curious to swing by over their first few days.

With that, here's our first peek inside this eagerly-awaited new Ninth Street offering. We'll see about getting some legit shots as soon as we can get over there, though I'd be shocked if the good folks at Carpe Durham don't get there first.

See ya at the soda fountain.

Comments

[carpedurham-rpp]

We are on it ;)

[Shane]

spy-photos! I love it!

[TSQ75]

love the spy photos!

i hope it actually IS a real sundries shop, and not just another gift shop with overpriced, good for only cuteness type items.

i mean, with cool little gift shops like cozy, and Things Remembered mere steps away, its not really necessary. but i place to run up to and get shampoo and mouthwash, aspirin or something--actual sundries...now that's convenient.

[RaleighRob]

Not sure, but from the pics this almost looks like it'll be Durham's answer to Raleigh' NoFo...except with soda fountain instead of a deli? Just my guess.

[KeepDurhamDifferent!]

As promised:
http://carpedurham.wordpress.com/2008/05/29/ox-rabbit/

[seth vidal]

It's another knick-knack gift shop that happens to have a sodafountain, too. I was hoping for aspirin, deodorant, etc, as well. I wish them well, I'm just not sure of the point. when we have cozy, vaguely reminiscent and zola all in the same street.

[weege]

It's basically Vaguely Reminiscent with a soda fountain. They had cutesy Japanese stuff, soaps, candles and whole bunch of way-overpriced baby crap. $45 onesies in a recession? Good luck.

[Joe]

I was kinda hoping for someplace like Fog City News -- http://www.fogcitynews.com/ . Oh well.

[anon]

Enough with the negativity! Lets give these people a chance. Ninth Street needs "browsing stores" like this to make it a destination. People like to browse and occasionally buy cutesy stuff. Asprin, deodorant and shampoo ain't a compelling reason to stroll down after dinner at Vin Rouge.

[TSQ75]

ANON:
oh give me a break! its not negativity, it's honesty. Honestly, i wish them all the best, but all ninth street has is "browsing stores!" as mentioned, there's already Cozy, Things Remembered, Zola, as well as The Regulator, Native threads, and the Toy shoppe! come one now, people that live in the vicinity of 9th St, i think would appreciate the practicality of a actual sundry store, rather than having to hike it up to Dollar general or an even farther away pharmacy.

and in addition, i would think people wanting to preserve the old feel of a place would like to see this cool old space serve its original purpose.

Like i said, those proprietors look sweet as can be, and i'm sure they have all the best dreams and intentions, but just because YOU dont want aspirin, dot assume no one else does.

[anon]

I love aspirin. How about an aspirin, deodorant, shampoo, etc vending machine? Sounds like an economic opportunity. Have a happy day!

[John Schelp]

Welcome to Ninth Street, Erin & Brian. You have a truly wonderful store. What you've done to restore a neighborhood landmark is remarkable. By exposing the rows of little window panes across the upper front of the store, folks can see how this old architectural feature throws daylight into the back of the shop.

Your shakes are delicious, your new counter is cool, and the old glass & wood cabinet filled with items from McDonald's Drug Store is a nice touch.

Welcome to Old West Durham, we're so glad you've come.

"Every locale has it landmarks
That only the locals know:
A 'T' in the road, a place to park,
Where only the locals go.
Some stick around while others depart,
But the bond's always there
Deep inside of their hearts."

--J. Wilson, Urban Hiker

[TSQ75]

I just want to clarify...I'm glad the place is open, glad someone is there, rather than a lovely old empty storefront...and I wish them all the best of luck, and I cant wait to have a shake. :)

[John Schelp]

New name, new occupants, but soda still flows
Hints of McDonald's Drugstore live on through recently opened Ox & Rabbit shop on Ninth Street
By David Newton, Durham News (N&O), 31 May 2008

Bryan Nickell and Erin Walker-McMullen have a sense of place for 732 Ninth St., the location of McDonald's Drugstore from 1922 until shortly before John McDonald's death in 2006.

Over nine decades the drugstore dispensed not only pharmaceuticals but huge doses of congeniality, milkshakes and, by the end, lots of feel-good nostalgia. That legacy is a blessing and a burden for the young couple that opened Ox & Rabbit Soda and Sundries this week in the space that was a West Durham institution.

"It's a gift," Nickell says of leasing from the McDonald family. "It feels very scary. Mrs. McDonald made those drinks for 60 years."

"Intimidating" is the word Walker-McMullen says of renovating and opening a shop to sell fountain sodas, milkshakes and sundries ranging from cards to baby clothes to body care products (including a vegan aftershave).

"I feel very lucky to be part of it," she says.

The history is this: Angus McDonald opened a pharmacy in 1914 on Main Street, moved it to Ninth Street in 1916 and settled in the current location in 1922. His son John finished pharmacy school in Chapel Hill after serving in World War II and joined him in 1949.

Angus died in 1973. John worked the pharmacy and over the years gradually drifted forward to help his wife Frances at the soda fountain as his prescription business and health faded. The store closed shortly before his death.

"It was the heart and soul of the whole block of stores," says Tom Campbell, a partner at neighboring Regulator Bookshop. "It was the connection to the past of what Ninth Street had been, a place where everybody could go and experience the warmth of John and Frances McDonald and get a feel of the way it used to be. There was a real loss of the feeling of community on the street when they left."

As the Ninth Street revival inched along in the late 1970s and early '80s, baby boomers brought their kids around to say hello, buy a shake or perhaps leave a picture of their kids, which Frances stuck in what would grow to become eight large frames crammed with photos.

The drugstore was familiar, reassuring and eventually dark with age. John, in his white pharmacist's smock, sat in the rear in a straight-backed chair. He often talked about his war training with the late Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams or the family dog who escaped the basement of his boyhood Broad Street home each night and made the rounds with the night watchman at Watts Hospital for years before being found out.

Reviving the past

After the store closed in mid-decade, Nickell and Walker-McMullen strolled Ninth Street and looked at the empty storefront that echoed with memories and shouted with possibilities. Nickell, 28, spent much of his childhood in and out of the store while his mother operated a boutique several storefronts away.

"Every time we walked by we felt a very special connection by looking in the window," says Walker-McMullen, 26. "This is what we saw."

What customers see today, after a year of renovation and plenty of help from friends, is lots of light and air and aqua walls that have large windows on either end.

The soda fountain is a Cadillac of its time, a 1949 Bastian-Blessing with three sinks, nozzles for seltzer and filtered water and 16 syrup pumps. Count 'em: syrups for Coke, root beer, ginger ale, Sprite and Dr. Pepper, and the seven flavors of raspberry, cherry, orange, strawberry, lime, vanilla and classic chocolate. Truffle chocolate, dark chocolate, lavender vanilla and Mexican vanilla are also in the mix.

The original McDonald's soda fountain was donated to Historic Preservation Society of Durham. Nickell and Walker-McMullen scrounged the Internet, swallowed hard at the $20,000 price tag and finally settled on their fountain of uncertain health.

A technician more interested in refrigeration than big profits put the fountain in working order as the couple, who are partners in life and work, began calibrating the squirts on the fountain pumps to get the right taste. Two pumps (2 ounces) of Coke syrup and one pump of vanilla (a half ounce) in a 16-ounce cup of crushed ice yields a lip-smacking vanilla Coke, they learned.

Nickell and Walker-McMullen, both Guilford College graduates, have no previous retail experience, but are canny enough to realize that the experience of buying ranks close to the product itself.

Nostalgic pieces pepper the store: a refrigerated display case of Whitman's chocolates; a cast-iron baby bathtub offering body products; dark shelves housing old pharmaceutical bottles; a 1916 chair-maker' s table; and a 1920s-era four-eye "Prosperity" enamel gas stove whose oven dial designates the proper temperature for custard, sponge cake, angel cake and macaroni.

The store name, Ox & Rabbit, comes from Midlake's song "Bandits," which is about starting over. "It wouldn't feel right" to carry on the McDonald name, Nickell says.

Still. The McDonald memory remains. Nickell says the eight frames of photos of Frances McDonald's "children" will be on rotating display.

"It's [the drugstore] going to be replaced by somebody [Bryan Nickell] who I'm sure had his picture on the wall," Campbell from the Regulator says. "That's just great. It's going to be a wonderful place for people to come and enjoy some good, cheap, old-fashioned pleasure."

"We still call it the drugstore," Nickell says. "I try to train myself to use 'the shop.'"

[Stephanie]

What a disappointment!

For nine months I walked by this place waiting for it to open. A real soda shop, awesome.

And now it's open and it's mainly a sparcely stocked gift shop.

It took them nine months to do this?

Where's the soda shop menu? Where are the cool bar stools and the seating.

I just don't see a future for this place. We have very good gift shop boutiques.

[James Hepler]

I mentioned this on the carpe diem site already, but since I also found a conversation here, let me just say that I just spent the only money I will ever spend at Ox and Rabbit. I simply do not appreciate their price gouging. This store belongs on Franklin Street or in Carr Mill Mall, maybe Cary, places where people can more easily afford the 300% markups.