Billy D’s Coming This Fall

We are excited to announce that Billy D’s is coming to McEwen this fall! This new retail dining option features “hot ‘n’ crispy” fried chicken sandwiches, and fixings like mac & cheese, garlicky butter beans, and waffle fries.

This is our first local chef partnership with Chef William Dissen, whose Billy D’s concept matches our commitment to scratch-made food from responsibly sourced, locally procured ingredients.

Dissen himself is a renowned chef and culinary diplomat, restauranteur, published author, and an early pioneer of the farm-to-table and ocean sustainability movements in the Southeastern United States’ Appalachia region.

Awarded “Green Chef of the Year” two years in a row by FORTUNE Magazine, Chef Dissen currently owns three high-end farm-to-table restaurant concepts in North Carolina: The Market Place in Asheville, Billy D’s Fried Chicken at The North Carolina Zoo, and Haymaker in uptown Charlotte. He recently defeated celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay on National Geographic’s Uncharted, landing him the title “World’s Most Sustainable Chef.” His acclaim has caught the attention of television producers, national food critics, and award-winning destination resorts and brands while making appearances on Travel Channel’s Andrew Zimmern’s Delicious Destinations, and CNBC’s Squawk Box. On top of that, Chef William Dissen is a six-time James Beard Foundation “Featured Chef”, having guest-cooked more than 16 times on the foundation grounds, and contributed recipes to “Waste Not: How To Get The Most From Your Food” published by James Beard Foundation.

Chef Dissen is perhaps best known for helping to establish the local food shed in Western North Carolina, starting in the early 2000’s and has long-been committed to cooking exclusively with locally foraged ingredients. Dissen became an advocate for food policy on Capitol Hill starting in 2010 after recognizing the impact of climate change and overfishing on food sources. The Barack Obama Administration hailed him as a, “White House Champion of Change for Sustainable Seafood,” and he had the opportunity to speak to Congress about the importance of passing The Farm Bill, The Childhood Nutrition Reauthorization Act, and The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

When he’s not creating new amazing dishes across his three award winning restaurants, Chef Dissen serves on the U.S. State Department’s American Chefs Corps, which sends him traveling around the world as a culinary diplomat educating organizations about food sustainability practices. His titles include, “Seafood Watch Ambassador” to The Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, and Official Ambassador for Le Creuset and Mountain Valley Spring Water.