Joey's Pancake House - A Maggie Valley Institution - Closes Its Doors

BPR News | By Matt Bush

Published June 9, 2017 at 11:40 AM EDT

Joey's Pancake House in Maggie Valley, which first opened in 1966, will serve it's last breakfast this coming Tuesday June 13th. Owner Brenda O'Keefe lists many reasons for why she's closing, including her health and increasing difficulty in keeping enough employees to ensure the restaurant runs to her high standards. Joey's is an institution in Maggie Valley, regularly seeing lines of up to 50 people waiting for a table on the weekends. Smoky Mountain News reporter Corey Vaillancourt joined BPR's Matt Bush to discuss why Joey's means so much to Maggie Valley and Western North Carolina, and the future of similar eateries as high-end and fine dining in the region become more prevalent thanks to increases in tourism.

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Matt Bush

Matt Bush joined Blue Ridge Public Radio as news director in August 2016. Excited at the opportunity the build up the news service for both stations as well as help launch BPR News, Matt made the jump to Western North Carolina from Washington D.C. For the 8 years prior to coming to Asheville, he worked at the NPR member station in the nation's capital as a reporter and anchor. Matt primarily covered the state of Maryland, including 6 years of covering the statehouse in Annapolis. Prior to that, he worked at WMAL in Washington and Metro Networks in Pittsburgh, the city he was born and raised in.

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