Paw-Paw’s Place on Dixie Drive closes in Asheboro

Here’s the now-closed location of Paw-Paw’s Place in Asheboro. (PJ Ward-Brown / Randolph Record)

ASHEBORO – Paw-Paw’s Place has closed one of its two locations in Asheboro after less than three years.

The restaurant at 715 East Dixie Drive is no longer operating.

Mitchell Simmons, a third-generation owner of Paw-Paw’s Place, said it’s a matter of making it all click. He said Paw-Paw’s Place’s Fayetteville Street location will expand its hours.

“It was a lot of things,” he said. “It all worked out in the end.”

That leaves the Fayetteville Street location open for breakfast and lunch until evening hours are added, Simmons said. He said the Fayetteville Street location offered supper for a couple of years, so now it will return to that format.

“I’m basically moving my evening crew from the Dixie location,” Simmons said.

The Fayetteville Street venue is smaller than the Dixie Avenue venue, so there’s lower staff numbers there. Obtaining workers is always a challenge, Simmons said, but said his core staff members provide stability.

Simmons said regular diners at the Dixie Drive restaurant, where only lunch and dinner were served, indicated they’re willing to make the switch to the other site, so that was encouraging.

The Paw-Paw’s Place menu won’t change, so customers can count on the same staples to choose from, Simmons said.

Simmons has been cleaning out the Dixie Drive building that had been home to the second location. It closed after serving customers June 14.

“I’ve been moving stuff around,” he said, expecting to be out of that location by the end of June.

Paw-Paw’s Place added the Dixie Drive location in the fall of 2021. It replaced the Dixie III, which had been in operation for 39 years before its closing in September 2021.

For now, the Paw-Paw’s Place on Fayetteville Drive is open from 6 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday through Saturday.