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Top of the Hill is a brewpub and restaurant located at the intersection of Franklin and Columbia Streets in downtown Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Since it opened in 1994, Top of the Hill has become a popular location for residents to dine thanks to its convenient location at the heart of Chapel Hill, and has received a number of awards and even international recognition for its beers, which are brewed on-site.

History
Top of the Hill was founded in 1994 by Scott Maitland, then a law student studying at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Maitland became interested in purchasing an under-construction building at the intersection of Franklin and Columbia Streets after learning that T.G.I. Fridays, a national restaurant chain, wanted to open a new location there. Fearing what he perceived as a potential stifling of Chapel Hill’s local food and drink culture by corporate establishments, a sentiment inspired directly by the replacement of his favorite locally-owned coffee shop by national chains, Maitland contacted Daniel Bradford, the editor of All About Beer magazine, and John Withey, an experienced English brewer, to open a microbrewery and claim the building before T.G.I. Fridays.

Recently, Top of the Hill made additions to its original location. After acquiring a neighboring space formerly occupied by the Carolina Theater in 2010, Maitland and Top of the Hill opened an event hall and a new bar styled in the tradition of an English pub, called the Great Room and Back Bar respectively. In 2012, Top of the Hill opened their own on-site distillery.

Restaurant
Top of the Hill’s restaurant is situated on a balcony overlooking downtown Chapel Hill, which is decorated with gargoyles representing noteworthy residents of the town – cleverly nicknamed “Targoyles” in reference to the UNC Tar Heels athletic team – in order to represent the establishment’s connection with the culture of Chapel Hill. The lunch, afternoon, and dinner menus features a wide variety of food including dishes from the American south, the West Coast, and even Italy and Asia, with no distinct style of cuisine dominating the menu.

Because of the quality of the restaurant’s food and its popularity amongst residents, Top of the Hill has received a number of awards and accolades from local media. Newspapers such as the Daily Tar Heel and the Independent Weekly have awarded Top of the Hill it as the “Best Place to Watch ACC Basketball” – one of the most popular sports in the region thanks to the rivalry between the highly competitive basketball teams of UNC Chapel Hill and neighboring Duke University – annually since 2009, as well as the “Best Outdoor Dining in Orange/Chatham County” (2009, 2010) and “Best Business Lunch Awards” (2007).

Brewery
Top of the Hill’s brewery primarily specializes in English style ales, though it also makes a number of beers in other styles, including American lagers, wheat beers, Indian pale ales and stouts, many of which are named after famous Chapel Hill residents and landmarks. In 2004, Top of the Hill began canning beers to be sold off-site, making it the first brewery in North Carolina to do so. As the largest purchaser of alcohol in North Carolina, customers at Top of the Hill drink an average of sixty kegs of beer per week, making it the largest brewpub in the United States in beer sold per square foot. The brewery is also home to the first cask beer program south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

The beer brewed by Top of the Hill has recently earned it regional as well as international recognition, including several gold, silver and bronze medals at the Carolinas Championship of Beer. Internationally, Top of the Hill has won gold and silver medals at the World Beer Championship, and several of its beers have been declared among the world’s best by the Beverage Tasting Institute.

Distillery
In 2012, Top of the Hill opened an on-site distillery in a building previously occupied by the Chapel Hill News, and began producing and selling its own brands of vodka, whiskey, and gin. The distillery, which uses a fifth-generation still and copper kettle, is noted for its exclusively local and organic ingredients, and is the only distillery of its kind in the American South. While Top of the Hill does not produce rum because sugarcane does not grow in North Carolina, Maitland has stated that he is interested in distilling a recent variant of rum made from locally-grown sorghum grass in order to continue to use only local agricultural products.

Top of the Hill’s liquors are available statewide in North Carolina ABC Stores and select restaurants in the Research Triangle region.

Great Room
The Great Room is Top of the Hill’s event and banquet hall. Opened in 2010 in conjunction with the Back Bar, is used for private events such as weddings and Greek life, as well as more public occasions such as university events, corporate workshops, and concerts and performances. The Great Room has a capacity of 140 people when arranged for seating and 200 when arranged for standing. It has a full-time event staff trained in hospitality management, as well as its own kitchen and bar.

Some of the more notable clients of the Great Room include schools such as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University, major financial and insurance corporations such as Wells Fargo, Credit Suisse, and BlueCrossBlueShield of North Carolina, musician and UNC graduate Anoop Desai, and Saturday Night Live writer Bryan Tucker.

Back Bar
The Back Bar was opened in 2010 after Top of the Hill’s expansion. Featuring exposed brick walls and a self-described “warm industrial atmosphere,” amenities like television, darts, and foosball, as well as a graffiti wall, the Back Bar aims to emulate the atmosphere of a more traditional bar or pub. The menu of the Back Bar consists of foods commonly served at sports bars, such as burgers, wings, and pretzels, and is also where Top of the Hill’s cask beer is served.

The Back Bar routinely serves as a venue for local performance acts, offering weekly free comedy performances on Tuesdays. In September, 2012, it was host to the National Theatre of Scotland’s performance of The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart.