"We physically can't make enough biscuits in that space anymore," Kyle James told Mountain Xpress in January. He was explaining why Flour, the biscuit café he runs with his brother Carter James and chef Gordon Gibbs, was leaving its small corner of the S&W Market food hall for 40 Wall St.
That storefront had been Laughing Seed for 32 years. It now has a blue Flour logo out front. Across the street at 37 Wall St., Svitlana Eadie opened Slava, a Ukrainian café and bakery, this summer. And on the plaza between the steps and the parking garage, the Asheville Downtown Association has local buskers playing every day at lunch.
Wall Street's comeback is happening in daylight, roughly from breakfast to 2 p.m., and the downtown program now running there is aimed squarely at the lunch hour.
The Gap Helene Left on One Short Street
The street spent most of 2025 losing tenants. In May 2025, Joan and Joe Eckert announced that Laughing Seed would close on May 31. The Asheville Citizen Times reported that they pointed to lingering COVID-era costs, staffing, downtown conditions, and Helene's effect on business and on their own energy to keep going. "We hoped we could come back from Helene in a positive way, but have decided it's more than we can manage as summer approaches," the owners wrote.
The restaurant was bigger than one storefront. According to Jack of the Wood's own history, the Eckerts used Laughing Seed's profits to build that pub, which they founded. Mountain Xpress also listed Rite Rite coffee shop and Cucina 24 among the downtown closures in the months after the storm.
Getting to the street got harder for a while too. The Wall Street Parking Garage closed for structural repairs, and WLOS reported that it reopened to the public by Oct. 11, 2025, with minor elevator-landing work continuing while it stayed open. So the revival had to start with a reopened garage, a newly painted staircase and an empty corner restaurant.
Two New Storefronts, Both Built for the Morning
What has filled the gap so far is breakfast and lunch.
Flour Cafe, 40 Wall St. Flour opened its new flagship on July 31. That was later than the March or April move the partners had planned in January. The biscuit sandwiches and full coffee program came along from S&W Market. The bigger kitchen added a breakfast salad, baked eggs shakshuka, classic pancakes, and a "Beans and Greens" plate of Rancho Gordo beans, braised kale, avocado, queso fresco, escabeche and cilantro. Local artist Joshua Spiceland painted the exterior logo, and a mural by Liz Evey covers an interior wall. "The space is full of beautiful plants, natural sunlight and a cozy aesthetic that feels like we finally have a home here on Wall Street," James told Mountain Xpress in August.
In January, the partners said they planned only light changes to the Laughing Seed room: fresh paint, new furniture and new branding. James pointed to the skylights, the patio and the back sunroom as the reasons.
Slava, 37 Wall St. Eadie catered in Asheville for almost a decade before opening Slava, her first brick-and-mortar location. The soft opening began July 18, and the grand opening was set for Aug. 5. The bakery case holds braided sweet and savory yeast breads, poppy seed rolls and cheddar green onion biscuits. Breakfast brings crispy potato pancakes with sour cream and dill, plus made-to-order crepes that can also be ordered gluten-free. Lunch includes handmade potato dumplings, fried cabbage or beef yeast buns, and house-made sauerkraut, and the drinks list carries kvas and kompot alongside the coffee.
"I want it to feel like a warm gathering place for Asheville," Eadie told Mountain Xpress.
As of Mountain Xpress's August report, Flour was open Thursday through Monday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays while the team got established. Slava's soft opening ran Wednesday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Both kitchens closed at 2 p.m. Hours at new restaurants tend to change after the first few months, so a quick check before a Tuesday or Wednesday visit makes sense.
Flour may stay open later at some point. In January, James said the restaurant could eventually add afternoon and evening hours with sandwiches and dinner, though plans were still early.
The Plaza Gets a Lunch Hour of Its Own
The Asheville Downtown Association's newest program fits the same daylight schedule. Lunchbox Live runs daily on Wall Street Plaza from Oct. 1 through Nov. 20, 2026, with live music by local buskers from noon to 1:30 p.m. According to the Downtown Association's Oct. 6 announcement, the program includes:
- Tables and chairs set out on the plaza
- Downtown Ambassadors on hand during the set
- Rain plans that try to move performances inside a participating Wall Street business, though significant weather may cancel a slot
- An invitation to Wall Street and nearby restaurants to offer a Downtown Lunchbox Special, a simple grab-and-go meal aimed at under $15
When the association published the announcement, participating restaurants had not been confirmed yet. Which kitchens offer the special is still being decided.
The association's reasoning for the program is about lunch: "Phase I gave Wall Street a destination. Phase II gives people a reason to keep coming back." It goes on to say that public art paired with daily programming supports the businesses around the plaza, "especially at lunchtime."
A Hellbender Climbing the Garage Wall
That "destination" is the Wall Street Steps. In Phase I, local artist Dayna Walton painted the staircase after a panel of Wall Street neighbors, downtown stakeholders and local arts professionals chose her through a competitive RFQ. Her mural, Meander, follows the Southern Appalachian ecosystem from the bottom step up. Plants and animals of the lower elevations sit at the base, high-elevation species sit at the top, and signage along the way names the species. The Downtown Association marked the finished mural with a Wall Street block party on June 27, with live music, 16 vendors and artists, and activations from neighboring businesses.
Phase II extends the artwork up and across the parking garage wall, linking the steps, the plaza and the surrounding downtown into one continuous piece. The subject shifts to the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers. The association describes them as "waterways that shaped this place and that many of us have thought about differently since Helene." The centerpiece is the hellbender, a native salamander that depends on clean, flowing water.
Installation is planned for this month and should take about two weeks. Crews will work from a bucket truck, so posted signs will mark the work area. The association says the public is welcome to watch the mural come together.
That puts the mural work, the lunchtime music and the two new cafés' operating hours on the same few blocks during the same weeks of October. The Asheville Downtown Improvement District Board voted to support a second phase after Phase I's success. In the association's words, people took their time going up the staircase, learning species names and posing for photos.
Downtown's Restaurant Turnover Hasn't Stopped
On Oct. 7, Rhubarb and its sister café-bakery The Rhu announced they were closing effective immediately. The Citizen Times reported that management cited a changing dining landscape. Their statement thanked the community "for supporting us through more than a decade of service, and for the team who worked so diligently to revive the brand after Helene."
A few blocks from Wall Street, the news has run the other way. Andaaz, whose Biltmore Village location was destroyed by Helene flooding, reopened in mid-July at 15 Page St. on the ground floor of the Cambria Hotel. Closings and reopenings are still happening side by side downtown. On Wall Street, most of the new activity so far happens before 2 p.m.
A Weekday on Wall Street Before November 20
With about five and a half weeks left in the Lunchbox Live season, which ends on Friday, Nov. 20, a weekday visit could go like this:
- Morning at 40 Wall St. Order a biscuit sandwich or the Beans and Greens at Flour, and sit in the skylit room or out on the patio. As of August, Flour was closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
- A bakery stop across the street. Pick up braided bread or poppy seed rolls at Slava to take home, or stay for potato pancakes and a kompot.
- The steps. Climb Meander from the lowland species at the bottom to the high-elevation ones at the top, reading the signage on the way up.
- The garage wall. Check how far the hellbender has gotten while installation runs this month, giving the bucket truck plenty of room.
- Noon to 1:30 p.m. on the plaza. Grab a table for the day's busker, with lunch from Slava's savory menu or whichever nearby kitchen joins the Downtown Lunchbox Special.
Back in January, James called Wall Street "one of the prettiest streets in Asheville" and predicted "an all-around revitalization." This fall, the clearest place to see that revitalization is the plaza at lunch, with a biscuit from 40 Wall and a busker playing until 1:30.
At Kim Gentry Justus, we follow downtown at the level of individual storefronts, like the Laughing Seed space reopening and the mural spreading across the garage, because that kind of detail tells you how a street is doing. If you'd like to talk about life in downtown Asheville and the blocks around Wall Street, we'd be glad to arrange a curated consultation.
