Dano Holcomb revives Root Down at Terra Nova taprooms in Swannanoa and South Slope

On September 27, 2024 – watching from a bridge as the French Broad River rose over Salvage Station on Riverside Drive — Dano Holcomb was in disbelief. The popular indoor/outdoor music venue is where Dano’s equally popular Root Down food truck was parked. It was home base for his kitchen where he cooked for every Salvage Station show since February 2020, and where he prepped for the truck that served breweries including Highland and New Belgium, as well as multiple events in the region.

Tropical storm Helene devastated Western North Carolina, and Asheville was hit hard. Dano took a one-two punch, with both assets of his business gone. He wasn’t sure how or if he would recover.

But he dug deep, and in March, Root Down’s signature fried chicken sandwich made a triumphant comeback at Terra Nova Beer Co.’s taproom in Swannanoa’s historic Beacon Village. In July, the Root Down menu launched at Terra Nova’s South Slope location on S. Lexington Avenue in Downtown Asheville.

While both locations have the famous chicken sandwich – buttermilk crystal-soaked thigh topped with avocado and jalapeno aioli slaw – as well as other Root Down standards like the Riverside salad, griddled mac & cheese, and boring fries (so named for their unadorned nature) – Dano has tweaked the menus at each in response to the different clientele. 

“When we first started cooking in Swannanoa, I realized the vibe was much more relaxed there than at Salvage Station, where people wanted their food pretty quickly, so they could get back to the show,” he explains. “At Terra Nova in Swannanoa, it’s more of a chill, sit down, stay a while place.”

It also wasn’t keen on a couple of items that were on the first menu there, like the muffaletta; Swannanoa’s menu has a roast beef debris po’ boy, a fried catfish po’ boy, a pork and pimento cheese sandwich, and banana pudding.

In Asheville, Terra Nova guests can order that muffaletta, a tempeh po’ boy, brisket hoe cake, boudin balls, and crawfish poutine.

Helene wasn’t Dano’s first tangle with adversity and seemingly insurmountable challenges. The former UNCA soccer player went on to coach at the college level, including at Tulane, where he fell in love with the cuisine that would influence his culinary concept, described as Creole Southern Soul Food.

He enrolled in culinary school in New Orleans six years after Katrina; during the intense two-and-a-half-year program, he worked in some of NOLA’s most famous restaurants, including Brigtsen’s, Commander’s Palace and Patois.

With two young children and both sets of parents in North Caroline, he and his wife Julie relocated to Statesville, where her parents lived. After working in a couple of restaurants, Dano knew he wanted to do his own thing, and that a food truck was his ticket. He purchased one he saw for sale on the side of the road, built it out, and christened it Root Down. It made its debut at Davidson Beverage Company in Statesville, but found a lot more business at breweries in Charlotte.

When Julie got a job at Mission Hospital, Dano reached out to the still small-ish food truck community in Asheville and received support and encouragement. Root Down made a smashing debut at The Wedge in 2014 and steadily built a fervid following.

So much so that Salvage Station, where he had parked for many shows, invited him to be the permanent resident of their show-night kitchen, with the understanding he would continue to run his truck at other venues.

Root Down at Salvage Station had its grand opening on Mardi Gras 2020, weeks before Covid shut the world down. Thankfully, the truck could pivot, and Salvage Station shows were primarily outdoors.

In May 2024, Salvage Station learned that the ongoing Interstate 26 Connector forever project would take the property by eminent domain, and they would have to vacate by the end of the year.

Dano says that forced him to consider what his options might be, outside of the food truck; he just didn’t expect the need to make that decision would happen so quickly.

In the weeks and months after Helene, he pondered getting back to coaching soccer or possibly private cheffing. “It was a really dark time for me,” he admits. “I didn’t know what to expect for my job, my business, for Asheville. But at the end of the day, I really wanted to cook, and Root Down had made a great name for ourselves, so let’s figure that out.”

When Terra Nova – whose building was not badly impacted by Helene – proposed he set up in their kitchen, they came to an agreement, and after a few days of cleaning and applying for permits, that chicken sandwich was flying out the Root Down window.

“It felt really good to be cooking again, especially in a community that had been so hard hit, to be able to feed them in a place they already loved was great. We had people we knew from the truck and from Salvage Station drive out to see us, and it was reassuring to see them.”

In July, when Mission Pizza vacated Terra Nova’s Lexington Avenue taproom, the drive for Asheville regulars got a lot shorter. In just three days, they got the mammoth pizza oven out, their fryers in, and Root Down at Terra Nova South Slope was rockin’.

“With everything that has happened the last five years, it’s hard to predict anything,” Dano says. “But I can tell you that gumbo season is here, and we’ll be putting it on the menu at both locations.”

More about Root Down

— Written by Kay West

— AIRfare is sponsored by McGuire, Wood & Bissette

Photo courtesy of Root Down
First photo: Chef Dano Holcomb
Second photo: Root Down’s famous fried chicken
Third photo: Gumbo season coming soon