Bread of Heaven increases presence in Goldsboro by adding two new locations
By Rochelle Moore
Published in News on December 31, 2017 3:05 AM
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News-Argus/ROCHELLE MOORE
Ray and Sandra Williams, owners of Bread of Heaven Cafeteria, prepare to serve customers during a private opening Thursday at the downtown restaurant, which opens Tuesday at 120 E. Mulberry St.
Bread of Heaven, a popular homestyle country restaurant, will increase its presence in the Goldsboro market with two restaurants planned to open in early 2018.
Bread of Heaven Cafeteria is set to open Tuesday at 120 E. Mulberry St., in downtown Goldsboro, and Bread of Heaven Chicken, Ribs and Barbecue restaurant will open in February at 200-C N. Berkeley Boulevard.
Bread of Heaven's bakery and well-known buffet-style restaurant, at 402 Spence Ave., will remain open and continue to operate Tuesday through Saturday.
"We're expanding because we've always wanted more than one location in the city of Goldsboro," said Sandra Williams, who co-owns Bread of Heaven with her husband, Ray Williams Jr. "We wanted to be where about every corner of Goldsboro, people could reach us and not go out of their way."
The Williams couple has been focused on the opening of the Bread of Heaven Cafeteria for weeks in downtown Goldsboro. A temporary sign has been added to the outside of the restaurant, announcing its opening on Jan. 2. Front and a rear entrance doors also have a photo of the couple and the business name.
Bread of Heaven has been a longstanding Goldsboro business that started first as a bakery in the early 1990s.
The new cafeteria will be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner Tuesday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and Saturday from 7 a.m. to noon. Breakfast is available until 10 a.m.
Five meat selections and seven to eight types of vegetables will be available each day.
Breakfast items include grits, eggs, hashbrowns, several types of sausage, bacon, beef steak, ham steak, biscuits, rolls, pancakes, toast and sausage gravy. Waffles and chicken wings will be available on Saturdays, and pork chops will be offered on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Williams said.
Each day of the week, there will be several different meal selections, including such items as fried chicken, hamburger steak, baked spaghetti, fried pork chops, country style steak, fish, beef liver and onions, pork ribs, beef ribs and chicken pastry.
A few meal items will be offered every day, including pork barbecue, turkey barbecue, chicken salad and hog chitterlings.
The restaurant's wide variety of vegetables and sides include rice, collards, green beans, creamed corn, mashed and boiled potatoes, potato salad, yams and macaroni and cheese. Desserts are also on the menu, based on daily availability, Williams said.
The restaurant's cafeteria-style is designed to provide faster service for customers to either dine in or take out orders.
"We want it to be where it's semi self-service," she said. "We want it where they can come in, come through the line, get their food and be seated. From there, the server will take full care of them."
There will be two cash registers, one for the cafeteria line and another for carryout orders, in an effort to provide faster service. Carryout orders can be made by calling the restaurant at 919-288-1398 or 919-288-2855.
"People can call in or they can come in and get take out," she said. "We want it where it's quick. I think people will like the fast service where they can come in and get out."
Customers who are seated will receive service on their drink orders or other needs.
"We want it to be comfortable and cozy for people who are dining in," Williams said. "It's for everybody to come in and enjoy themselves and be at home."
In addition to traditional drinks, the cafeteria will also serve freshly made lemonade and lemonade flavored with mango, raspberry, strawberry or peach. The family's own blend of Kool--Aid will also be available.
"It's like a fruit punch," she said.
Williams said there is plenty of parking in the downtown area, along Mulberry and other city streets, as well as behind the restaurant, near a rear entrance door.
A third restaurant is also planned to open in Goldsboro, Bread of Heaven Chicken, Ribs and Barbecue, on North Berkeley Boulevard in early February. The restaurant will be in the former Smoothie Cove location, which is in a small, three-tenant shopping center next to Wendy's.
"My husband, he wanted a chicken and rib restaurant, and so we got the opportunity to open at that spot on Berkeley Boulevard," Williams said. "That's something my husband always wanted, and the good Lord opened the door to do it."
The restaurant will serve fried, barbecue and baked chicken, baby back ribs, beef ribs, turkey barbecue and pork barbecue. Turkey and pork barbecue sandwiches will be available and several sides, including potato salad, cole slaw, macaroni and cheese, French fries, collard greens and green beans will be on the menu.
The restaurant has a small seating area and will accept dine-in, carryout and drive-through orders, Williams said.
Bread of Heaven has been a Goldsboro staple since 1991, when Williams first started a bakery from her Woodrow Street home.
"We were selling whole cakes, pies and cookies out of the house," she said.
The items were later sold from nine local convenience stores, which led Williams to decide to open her own bakery, in 1996, at 507 E. Ash St.
"I felt like, if they could sell my products in their stores, then I could open my own storefront," Williams said.
The business continued to thrive, and Williams later decided to open her first Bread of Heaven buffet restaurant on North William Street, which operated from 2000 through 2003.
Following the closing, she expanded her bakery and added a food takeout service. She also sold food at a curb market at the Wayne Center on Fridays.
The popularity of the bakery and food business continued, which led to another expansion into a larger building at 2301 E. Ash St., in the Barnyard shopping center, in 2009. By 2013, the business moved to Spence Avenue, where the bakery and buffet restaurant continue to thrive.
"That's a 14,744-square-foot building," she said. "We're doing great over there. We do a lot of banquets."
While Williams says she is responsible for the bakery items, the restaurant food is primarily influenced by her husband's cooking.
"My husband came from a real cooking family," she said. "I taught him how to bake, and he taught me how to cook. It isn't so much as throwing chicken into a frying pan. It's taking the time to prepare that chicken for the frying pan. He taught me how to cook with patience."
"(It's) Southern anointed," she said. "We call it a comeback ingredient so you'll come back."ে