Former Parchies space reborn within growing Wilmington district

For most of the past four decades, anyone going into the little 1950s brick building at the southwest corner of 12th and Princess streets in Wilmington was in the market for one thing: a heaping plate of barbecue, or maybe some fried chicken.

Beloved neighborhood eatery Parchies closed in 2021 after a 37-year run. But now, a new business in the old restaurant space has taken the building in a colorful new direction, serving up an eclectic range of art and jewelry instead of lunch plates.

Jonathan Summit and his wife, Eleanor Topping, opened the cozy Soda Pop Gallery as a pop-up in the former Parchie's space last fall. They've since settled in — and even got married here last month — with midday hours on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. In February, Soda Pop joined the monthly Fourth Friday crawl of downtown-area galleries and arts spaces, and Summit said they might add evening hours this summer.

The gallery, of course, takes its name from the surrounding Soda Pop District, which is gradually transforming Princess Street's former industrial/warehouse corridor into an entertainment destination filled with breweries, restaurants, art studios, the Jengo's Playhouse microcinema/event space and even a retro video game arcade.

Since they opened, a few former Parchies customers have stopped by, at least one of whom didn't know the restaurant had closed, Summit said with a laugh. But even if the hungry visitor was a little disappointed, they were no doubt wowed by the transformation.

Summit and Topping did keep the old Parchies mural ("cookin' butt and takin' names") on the east side of the building, but they also added a mural by Wilmington artist Mark Weber of a gator thirstily approaching a bottle of soda pop that sits on a lily pad as a woodpecker watches from a safe distance nearby. It's an original but familiar work that reflects the amusingly appealing vibe of much of the art inside.

The gallery space is different but not unrecognizable as Parchies: two long, narrow rooms separated by a low wall. Floors are shiny and glossy, and the former grill area has kept the old bar and been turned into an open-air kitchenette. (Summit jokes that it took a while to get the old restaurant smell out.)

Of course, art is everywhere, paintings huge and small, along with colorful jewelry, much of it created by Topping, who's also the gallery director. (Parchies had a pig-themed motif, and the gallery has at least one painting of a pig for sale.)

Summit is a voluble painter and his colorfully moody work is well-represented here. So is the work of a half-dozen other well-known Wilmington artists including Weber, Todd Carignan, Sarah Rushing Doss and Jean Dobbs Fonvielle, most of whom Summit met via the locally based No Boundaries International Art Colony.

Summit said he wants the Soda Pop to stand out from galleries selling what he calls "beach art" by stocking thoughtful, one-of-a-kind pieces by Wilmington artists. Weber specializes in whimsical portraits and depictions of animals, for example, while Summit's paintings come off like sprawling fever dreams, some of them populated by impossibly sprawling structures.

He's always been fascinated with buildings, and "I could've gone to school for architecture," Summit said.

Instead, he dove into the art world, and used to run galleries in Key West and in Provincetown, Massachusetts, before moving to Wilmington over a decade ago.

"It's an obsession," Summit said of his need to paint.

"That's what we do at night" instead of watching TV, Topping said. "We create."

At the same time, they're also creating a path forward with the Soda Pop Gallery, trying to find their lane in Wilmington's art scene.

"There's not a lot of walk-in traffic yet," Summit acknowledged, but said that sales during events like Fourth Friday have been good. Eventually, he and Topping would like the Soda Pop to become a destination for art-buyers, a concept that works with other galleries.

In the meantime, Summit said, his business of selling and installing exterior shutter systems operates out of the building, which he now owns, with most of the materials stored out back.

"During the week it's basically an office," he said of the gallery.

The outside space behind the Soda Pop has also been transformed, and Summit said the gallery could get into the event-hosting business as well, maybe even host some classes for students from neighboring New Hanover High School.

In some ways, he said, building the gallery has been like creating one of his paintings: trying a bunch of different things to see what works.

Even if it doesn't work right away or you need to change course later, he said, "You start in one direction and it gives you a hint of things you can pursue."

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Wilmington, NC restaurant Parchie's is now the Soda Pop Gallery