Myra and James McDuffie served their last meal at MeMa's Chick'n & Ribs in Burgaw on May 28, 2023. They finalized the purchase of a new building on Market Street in Porters Neck exactly one year later, on May 28, 2024. They held their grand opening exactly one year after that, on May 28, 2025.
Nobody planned it that way. Permitting timelines and closing schedules do not usually cooperate with a family's sense of symmetry. But the pattern is real, and it points at something bigger than one barbecue restaurant. This year, Porters Neck's most telling story is not a new business chasing foot traffic or a developer betting on the next wave of arrivals. It is two very different, very established institutions choosing to dig in on the same short stretch of Market Street, at the same moment, for the same reason: they already know this neighborhood works, and they are betting on it staying that way.
Three May 28ths
MeMa's story started in 2017, when the McDuffies opened their first location in Burgaw's Pender Landing Shopping Center on Valentine's Day, serving smoked meats and Southern comfort food built from recipes passed down from James's mother, Mary, the "MeMa" in the name. COVID, a string of landlords, and rising costs eventually pushed them out. They closed the Burgaw doors in May 2023 without a plan for what came next.
What came next was 8232 Market Street, a roughly 7,600 square foot building in Porters Neck that had previously housed J. Michael's Philly Deli. County deed records show the McDuffies paid $2.5 million for it. The space includes a drive-thru, which mattered to a family that had built a loyal following on carryout orders. While renovations were underway, they kept serving from a catering trailer three days a week so regulars would not have to wait a full year for a plate of ribs.
The wait ended on schedule with the calendar, if not with the construction crew. Myra McDuffie described the new building as the restaurant's forever home, and the grand opening drew the kind of crowd that told her the neighborhood had been waiting too. Today the restaurant runs Wednesday through Sunday, still smoking meats to order, still built around a family recipe box rather than a corporate menu template.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| May 28, 2023 | Burgaw location serves its last meal |
| May 28, 2024 | McDuffies close on 8232 Market Street, Porters Neck |
| May 28, 2025 | Grand opening of the new MeMa's Chick'n & Ribs |
A small, family-run kitchen does not usually get to choose its own timeline. This one did, three times in a row, and every choice pointed the same direction: toward staying, not toward moving on.
A Bigger Bet a Few Blocks Away
Porters Neck Village, the 58-acre continuing care community just off Porters Neck Road, broke ground this spring on the second phase of its master plan. The project will replace 68 of the community's original apartment homes with 67 larger residences, add 27 new apartments, and introduce five standalone units the community is calling village flats. The price tag is $39 million. The work is expected to wrap by September 2027.
This is not a startup chasing a market opportunity. Porters Neck Village is currently home to nearly 300 residents, managed by the Iowa-based Life Care Services, with Clancy & Theys Construction building and CJMW Design handling the architecture. Executive director Pierce Carey called the groundbreaking an important milestone in the community's continued growth. That phrase is easy to read past, but it is worth sitting with. A nonprofit senior living campus does not spend $39 million on a whim. It spends that kind of money when it has decades of occupancy data telling it that residents who move in tend to stay, and that the surrounding neighborhood gives them reason to.
The Same Instinct, Two Very Different Signatures
Set these two projects side by side and the coincidence stops looking like a coincidence. A family restaurant spent two years and $2.5 million finding a permanent building instead of leasing somewhere cheaper and easier. A senior living nonprofit committed $39 million to rebuilding its oldest housing stock in place instead of expanding elsewhere in New Hanover County. Neither business needed to make that choice. Both made it anyway, in the same twelve-month stretch, on the same corridor.
That is a different story than the one most growing neighborhoods tell. The usual version involves new construction pulling in newcomers, chasing rooftops that do not exist yet. This version is about institutions that already had a foothold choosing to go deeper rather than wider. MeMa's did not open a second location somewhere with more visibility. Porters Neck Village did not build its next phase on undeveloped land across town. Both bets were on the neighborhood as it already exists, not on some future version of it.
Why the Corridor Already Earned It
Neither bet would make sense if Porters Neck were a place people only passed through on the way to the beach. It is not. The corridor already runs on a set of anchors that have nothing to do with new construction.
Cornelia's, the restaurant at The Davis Community off Futch Creek Road, has built a following for its Wednesday night pasta specials and its willingness to host everything from a quiet dinner for two to a twenty-person birthday party. Cast Iron Kitchen draws a breakfast line most weekend mornings for shrimp and grits built with sausage, mushrooms, and red eye gravy, plus a corned beef hash that regulars order by name. Cape Fear Seafood Company keeps a Porters Neck location running with a full bar and weekend brunch. Down at the marina on Scotts Hill Loop Road, The Sailfish at Marsh Creek Marine gives boaters a place to eat wild-caught seafood on a patio while watching traffic move up and down the Intracoastal Waterway.
Then there is Porters Neck Country Club, the private, member-managed centerpiece of Porters Neck Plantation. Its Tom Fazio-designed course has carried a four-star rating for years, and the club runs more than 200 social events annually across golf, tennis, pickleball, and its pool and fitness programs. None of that is new. It is the reason a restaurant family and a senior living nonprofit both looked at this stretch of road and saw a safe place to put down permanent money.
What Actually Changes for a Resident's Week
None of this requires anyone to change their routine. It adds to it. The drive-thru at MeMa's means a Wednesday night dinner run no longer requires a trip past Ogden or into downtown Wilmington. The Village's new residences mean a parent or neighbor who wants to stay close to family in Porters Neck now has a modern option to age into without leaving the area they already know. The restaurants and the country club that have anchored the neighborhood's evenings and weekends for years are still there, unaffected by either project, still running the same Wednesday specials and Saturday tee times they always have.
That is the actual story here. Porters Neck is not remaking itself this year. It is confirming what it already was, with two very different institutions willing to put real money behind that confirmation. A restaurant family found its forever building. A senior living community bet $39 million on the idea that its residents are staying put. Neither needed a reason to believe in this corridor. They already had one.
If you are watching Porters Neck for reasons that go beyond dinner plans, whether that means a family member considering the Village's new residences, a search for a home near this stretch of Market Street, or simply questions about how a neighborhood like this holds its value over time, Neil Leonard has spent nearly a decade working this exact corridor of coastal North Carolina. Let's Connect.
