It may have taken decades, but Dan Doby is finally getting his dinner. Last year, the native Burlington resident opened Jazebel’s Jazz Bistro on land where he hunted for rabbits as a kid.
“I never got one,” he said. “That’s probably why I opened a restaurant — I was starving.”
Jazebel’s is themed around low country cuisine and jazz, what Doby said he considers the truest forms of American art and food.
“I’ve tried to make it so you look like you’re walking into a Charleston bar,” he said. “It’s not for everybody, but for the people who understand the food, history and music, it’s the place to be in this area.”
[box]Video by Caitlin O'Donnell.[/box]
Doby, who also owns local Dan Thai, has not always been involved in the restaurant business. The 25-year acting veteran began his college career at Elon in the mid-1970s and, while he would go on to graduate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1982, his experiences on the Elon stage defined his future path.
Originally an English major, Doby met now-retired Elon professor Andy Angyal, who was directing a Woody Allen play at the time. Doby won the lead role, launching him into a career that has included writing plays, stints on Guiding Light and Another World and international travel.
“One little afternoon at a classroom in Elon changed my life,” he said. “(It) set me on a course in life that was been very rewarding and it was totally by chance. That’s how life is. You’ve got all these wonderful plans you’ve laid out, but something is going to happen.”
When both of Doby’s parents became ill, he returned to his hometown, something he never thought he would do, and spent a large part of the next decade caring for them.
“In the course of that, I decided I wanted to spend every penny I’d ever earned,” he said. “And I did. Here we are, you’re looking at it.”
A trip to the restaurant is to leave behind the atmosphere of North Carolina and step into an entirely new world — a shrine to New Orleans, Savannah and Charleston. In four and a half months, Doby built Jazebel’s from the ground up, using local antiques and low country images, with help from a friend with experience in design and construction.
And though the restaurant is just recently celebrating its year anniversary, Doby said Jazebel’s already has a loyal customer base and a group of regulars who are always greeted with a standing ovation from staff.
“I want it to be a place where people can come and enjoy themselves and feel like they can let their hair down a little bit,” he said. “It’s a departure from my acting life, but it’s still meeting people, making them feel good, entertaining to a certain degree.”
While Doby may have thrown himself wholeheartedly into the restaurant business, his love for the stage has not diminished — he is currently exploring options for a dinner theatre venue.
“My background is entertainment and this is an extension of that,” he said. “As long as it’s fun and creative and I can make a living, I’m a happy guy.”