What Took Wolfgang's Place on Main Street in Highlands, NC
The short answer: Town Hall, a Southern comfort food restaurant and event space, now occupies 474 Main Street in downtown Highlands. Wolfgang's Restaurant & Wine Bistro called that building home for 30 years. Wolfgang's closed after a final New Year's Eve dinner in 2024, and owner David Perrin renovated the building and reopened it as Town Hall.
Walk past 474 Main Street this August and the building looks almost the same. The gabled roofline over what longtime locals still call the Gray Cottage hasn't moved. The garden patio still spills toward the sidewalk under the same trees. But the sign is different. If you try to book the New Year's Eve table your family has held for the last decade, you'll find that table doesn't exist anymore.
The easy version of this story is a swap: one restaurant left, another moved in. The more useful version, if you live here, is that the building's job changed. What that address does in Highlands daily life is different now than it was a year ago, and understanding how helps explain where Main Street is headed.
Thirty Years in the Gray Cottage
Wolfgang and Mindy Green arrived in Highlands from Dallas in 1994. They bought a struggling restaurant called Hildegard's, inside the Gray Cottage, one of the oldest buildings in town.
Wolfgang had been executive chef for the Brennan family at Commander's Palace in New Orleans. He brought that training north along with his German heritage, and built a menu that mixed Bavarian classics like Wiener schnitzel with Cajun and Creole technique.
Business was slow when they took over. Mindy reportedly went door to door, introducing herself to other shop owners and telling them plainly: if they liked what she and Wolfgang were doing, they'd come back. If they didn't, they wouldn't see her again.
They came back. Over the years the original 60-seat dining room grew to include a garden pavilion and outdoor seating. In 2008, the Greens added a bistro and bar, giving guests a casual small-plates option alongside the formal dining room.
The wine program became one of the restaurant's defining features. The cellar grew to more than 800 labels, and Wolfgang's earned Wine Spectator awards every year from 1999 through 2011.
What the Room Actually Held
What made the restaurant matter to Highlands wasn't only the food or the cellar. It was the staff who stayed for decades, and the occasions the room was trusted to hold:
- Sommelier D'Arcy Adams started as a waiter and rose to lead the wine program.
- Saul spent 29 years in the kitchen.
- Sean rose from sous chef to chef de cuisine over 12 years.
- Jacque managed the dining room for 14 years.
One longtime patron's published account describes Jacque seating their family in the wine room after a loss, giving them privacy to share stories and grieve together. You don't get that from a menu. It's the kind of institutional memory that only builds when the same people run the same room for three decades.
When the Greens announced they were closing, the response wasn't quiet. Reservations reportedly surged in the final weeks, and longtime customers filled social media with memories of anniversaries, proposals, and family dinners. That reaction tells you the restaurant had become more like civic infrastructure than a place to eat. People organized their milestones around it.
A Different Kind of Room: Town Hall at 474 Main Street
Here is the shift. Town Hall describes itself as much an event space as a restaurant. Its own materials list the occasions it's built for:
- business happy hours
- rehearsal dinners, wedding receptions, and welcome parties
- anniversaries
- charity events and corporate functions
- holiday gatherings
The property runs from Main Street through to Oak Street. It includes two bars and dining rooms that can be arranged for a group's needs. The old courtyard, where Wolfgang's guests spent many mountain evenings, has been reimagined as a casual lawn and outdoor gathering space.
The menu leans into seasonal Southern comfort food. It is a lighter, more shareable style than Wolfgang's Wiener schnitzel and pecan-crusted shrimp.
Owner David Perrin has been coming to Highlands since childhood and has eaten at Wolfgang's many times. His renovation refreshed much of the interior but kept nods to the building's history. The Greens have publicly welcomed the new chapter.
Here is how the two eras compare:
Wolfgang's (1994 to 2024) | Town Hall (now open) | |
|---|---|---|
Core identity | Chef-owned fine dining with German and Creole influence | Southern comfort food and event hospitality |
Primary use | A destination table for a specific meal | A flexible venue built around groups and bookings |
Signature feature | An 800-plus label wine cellar with more than a decade of Wine Spectator awards | Two bars, a patio, and a lawn for private and large events |
Hours | Dinner only, roughly 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. | Mon, Wed, Thu 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Fri and Sat 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Sun 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.; closed Tuesday |
Neither model is better than the other, but they ask different things of you. Wolfgang's asks you to come for a meal on its terms, at dinner hours, with a wine list to work through. Town Hall is built to be booked, to hold your happy hour or rehearsal dinner rather than to be the destination itself. The building didn't just get a new name. It got a new function in how Highlands residents use Main Street.
The Block Around It Didn't Skip a Beat
What's notable is how little the rest of Main Street changed while this happened.
Ristorante Paoletti, a few doors down at 440 Main Street, has been run by the Paoletti family since 1984. It ranked No. 13 among fine dining restaurants in the United States in Tripadvisor's Travelers' Choice Best of the Best awards. Fewer than 1 percent of Tripadvisor's roughly 8 million restaurant listings worldwide earn that designation. It is the same chef-family tradition that helped the Greens find their footing in 1994, when established restaurateurs in town shared menu advice and practical guidance on running a kitchen at altitude.
The rest of the block carries on as it has:
- Four65 Woodfire Bistro still turns out Neapolitan pizza a short walk away.
- Kilwins is still scooping ice cream.
- Wild Thyme still anchors the Town Square end of the street, where Friday Night Live sets up free traditional mountain music shows every Friday from May into October.
Every Saturday morning this season, the Highlands Farmers Market runs at Kelsey-Hutchinson Founders Park on Pine Street, the way it has for years. The Saturdays on Pine concert series fills that same park with music most weekends through October. None of that changed when one storefront changed hands.
If anything, the turnover proves the opposite point. A town's daily rhythm doesn't live in any single restaurant, no matter how many decades it holds a lease. It lives in small, recurring rituals across a whole block, and Highlands has kept most of them intact even as one of its most storied addresses begins a new chapter.
For a broader look at where to eat in town, see our local dining guide to the best restaurants in Highlands, NC and the 10 best restaurants in Highlands and Cashiers.
What This Tells You About Downtown Highlands
The turnover at 474 Main Street is a small, specific data point about how downtown Highlands is evolving. A one-of-a-kind, chef-driven fine dining institution gave way to a flexible hospitality concept built around bookings and events.
That fits what has happened to Highlands, North Carolina, more broadly over the past two decades. The town has shifted from a quiet seasonal mountain retreat to something closer to a year-round destination, a change many locals trace to the growth of Old Edwards Inn and the resort infrastructure that followed.
Main Street can hold both versions of itself at once. Paoletti's keeps the old model alive a few doors down, and Town Hall shows where at least one corner of the street is headed next.
If you kept a running mental list of where you celebrated every big occasion in this town, that list just changed shape. The building is still there, and the garden still catches the afternoon light. It's just doing a different job now.
Living Within Walking Distance of Main Street
For many buyers, this is Highlands' real appeal. Few mountain towns let you walk from your front door to dinner at Paoletti's, a Friday Night Live show on Town Square, and Saturday morning at the farmers market. Condos and cottages close to Main Street are the most direct way to get that life, and they don't come up for sale often.
- Walkable Highlands living in condos and cottages
- Highlands NC real estate: 2026 guide to homes for sale
- Browse current Highlands NC homes for sale
If you want to live inside these small, constant shifts on the Highlands-Cashiers Plateau, from Main Street storefronts to whole neighborhoods, that's the kind of local read Vignette Realty specializes in. Start your mountain story with a team that watches this plateau change in real time.
Frequently Asked Questions
What replaced Wolfgang's in Highlands, NC?
Town Hall, a Southern comfort food restaurant and event space, now occupies 474 Main Street, the former home of Wolfgang's Restaurant & Wine Bistro. Owner David Perrin renovated the building, which runs from Main Street through to Oak Street.
When did Wolfgang's Restaurant close?
Wolfgang's closed after a final New Year's Eve dinner in 2024, when Chef Wolfgang Green and his wife Mindy sold the business they had run since 1994.
Where is Town Hall in Highlands, NC?
Town Hall is at 474 Main Street in downtown Highlands, in the building locals know as the Gray Cottage, a few doors from Ristorante Paoletti.
What are Town Hall's hours in Highlands?
Town Hall is open Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. It is closed on Tuesday. Confirm current hours with the restaurant before you go.
Is Ristorante Paoletti still open in Highlands?
Yes. Ristorante Paoletti is at 440 Main Street and has been run by the Paoletti family since 1984. It ranked No. 13 among fine dining restaurants in the United States in Tripadvisor's Travelers' Choice Best of the Best awards.
