River Nile moving back to downtown

Katie Hart was downtown when downtown wasn’t cool.
Seeking more space and a corporate clientele,
Hart moved her thriving little downtown restaurant, River Nile, to a busy Montgomery Highway thoroughfare three years ago. Now, she’s moving back downtown to a two-story building at 274 N. Foster St., a block north of her previous location.
Before, she was called crazy for locating in a section of town people called risky. Now, she is part of an emerging revitalization of downtown Dothan.
“I love downtown,” said Hart, leaning forward on a red sofa in what is to be the greeting and reception area of the restaurant. “We live five minutes away. When we were down here before I used to walk to work.”
Hart recently went before the Historic Preservation Commission to get the go-ahead for her exterior renovations. The building, formerly housing the DUI school, will be painted a mossy green on the outside, and will have copper-colored shutters on the front and a plum colored awning at the rear of the building.
Half dozen offices of varying size are located downstairs and will be available as retail space. One artist has already committed to locating there.
The restaurant will seat about 100 — the same as the other location — and will have two conference room areas for private gatherings of two dozen or more.
Hart hopes to be open by mid-December. If it takes until January, that’s OK too. The mother of six children figures she deserves a rest from the business she started 11 years ago out of her home.
“January will be fine, but I like to aim high,” she says.
It is that spirit which has brought her success, though she acknowledges some might see her leaving Crepe Myrtle Plaza as a failure.
Hart sees it as a learning experience.
“I’m willing to try things,” she said. “I stepped out on faith 11 years ago. I am not afraid to try anything. I am not afraid to fail. I learned a lot in that last location. The overhead was too much. Then the economy began to dive. Summer did us in.
“It was better to come back to where we started. I am very excited to be back downtown.”
Hart shrugs her shoulders, saying her restaurant was always intended as a mom-and-pop place. She thought she could transition into a corporate restaurant, but without chain restaurant marketing dollars, Hart felt she should return to her niche. What she feels she might be losing in executive customers, she figures she will pick up in foot traffic.
And she couldn’t be
happier.
“From when I first moved downtown, there were so many people who were negative about my location. They said I would have homeless people showing up. I said, “ ‘We’ll feed them.’ And we did.”
Hart says downtown is much different today from when she first opened shop there in 2000.
“There is such a difference,” she said of the new energy and vitality. “People tell me they are so glad to hear I am coming back downtown. Downtown just feels right for me. I grew up on Lena Street.”
Hart plans to spend the coming week getting construction and other permits. A kitchen has to be put in, walls must be removed and bathrooms need sprucing up. And everywhere, there must be paint in Hart’s signature eclectic style, which gives the restaurant its unique atmosphere.
The menu will remain unchanged. There will still be cookie pots and a coffee bar. Her three best-sellers, as identified by her husband, Ashley, who monitors such business data, will probably stay the same: The Pharaoh sandwich, the roasted red pepper soup and the tomato soup. Bagels, muffins and coffee will still be served for breakfast.
It’s what’s earned her restaurant the designation as “that chick place.”
Hart laughs.
“That’s what some men call it. We have some men who do come in alone and eat and don’t think anything about it, but most eat with their wives. I would say our clients are 65 to 70 percent women.”