For more than 50 years, a family-owned and -operated restaurant occupied the building now known as 108 Budleigh. The family lived upstairs and Walkers' Diner was downstairs. A gathering place for locals and visitors, it offered excellent food and lively conversation. Where the staircase is now once sat the "round table" where talk usually drifted to the political issues of the day. When the buildings in the town adopted the Elizabethan style, the restaurant was renamed the Duchess of Dare.
In 2000, Fearing Realty, LLC, managed by Malcolm & Susan Fearing, purchased the property and began renovations. Incorporating repurposed items such as a brass hood from the Carolinian Hotel, antique light fixtures, stained-glass windows from a church in Virginia, doorknobs salvaged from a hotel in New York and a wrought iron fence that was rebuilt for the balcony railings, the venue opened for its first event June 15, 2001.
