Most of Chapel Hill knows Merritt's Grill as the counter at 1009 South Columbia Street. It has about 20 seats inside and 50 covered seats out front. That setup works in May and gets harder to use in late November. Since this summer, a second Merritt's has been operating inside the refurbished clubhouse at UNC's Finley Golf Club. That location has room for about 60 people indoors, plus a patio and other outdoor seating, according to The News & Observer.
The clubhouse location matters as much as the seat count. For anyone in The Oaks, Finley Golf Course Road leads to two things at once. One is a BLT you can eat indoors on a cold Sunday. The other is the parking lot that serves as the main entrance to Mason Farm Biological Reserve. Together they make a winter Saturday out of a sandwich and a 1.8-mile walk.
Twenty seats inside, or sixty
The two locations share a menu and an owner group, but they work very differently in cold weather.
| Columbia Street flagship | Merritt's at Finley | |
|---|---|---|
| Address | 1009 S. Columbia St. | 500 Finley Golf Course Rd. |
| Indoor seating | About 20 | About 60 |
| Outdoor seating | About 50 covered seats out front | Patio and other outdoor areas |
| Posted schedule | 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Saturday | Finley clubhouse: 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesday through Monday |
| Sunday | Closed | Clubhouse open |
| Closed | Sunday | Tuesday |
When Merritt's at Finley opened, The N&O reported its hours as 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. daily except Tuesday. The paper also reported that the clubhouse would let the restaurant try dinner service and Sunday hours, which the original has never offered. Finley's current posted schedule for the course, clubhouse and practice facilities is 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesday through Monday. Hours at a golf clubhouse change with the season and with private outings, so a call to 919-962-2349 before a Sunday visit is a good idea.
Finley's general manager, Rob Jeske, described the seasonal case for the new location to The News & Observer when it opened:
"I think it'll be a nice new opportunity for folks to be able to sit inside, whether it's because of the winter or if it's very hot in the summer."
Same BLT, plus one hot dog for golfers
The Finley location is open to anyone, not just golfers. Finley is a public course, and Visit Chapel Hill's listing describes the restaurant as open to "players & visitors alike," with dine-in, to-go and catering service in the clubhouse.
Co-owner John Toogood summed it up to The News & Observer as "a different feel, but same service, same food." He also said the new spot gives people more air conditioning, more seats indoors and more covered seating, and "maybe not have to go across town to get to it."
The N&O reported that the Finley menu matches the original with one exception. The original's hot dogs come with chili and other toppings. Finley adds a plain ballpark-style hot dog with mustard that golfers can carry between holes. The flagship's posted menu shows what else comes along:
- The signature BLT in single, double and triple sizes, plus a baby BLT
- A club, a turkey sandwich and a chicken salad sandwich
- Vegetarian options
- Burgers and hot dogs
- Salads and soups
- Breakfast sandwiches, served until 10:30 a.m., with lunch all day
The menu has earned recognition outside town too. Earlier this year Merritt's received an honorable mention on the N&O's Triangle Top 50 restaurant list, and readers put it among the top 20 local places to eat a sandwich. The business at Columbia Street dates to the 1920s, when the building was a gas station, and it has operated as Merritt's since 1992.
Golfers get some extras the dining room doesn't need. UNC Athletics lists an on-course beverage cart, an ordering station at the halfway house and catering for events booked at the club. Finley's gatherings page covers corporate, charity and social events for groups of 24 to 100, which makes the clubhouse an option for a December party that would not fit on Columbia Street.
Why a golf clubhouse had a kitchen ready
The clubhouse Merritt's moved into belongs to a course that has been rebuilt in the last few years. Finley's makeover began in 2021, its first major renovation since 1999. Chapelboro reported that the $13.5 million project redesigned the course, flipped the nines and added new practice facilities. Love Golf Design, the firm founded by Davis and Mark Love, led the course work. Club + Resort Business reported that the course reopened in October 2023.
The clubhouse food service came next. When Merritt's arrived, Toogood told The N&O the clubhouse had "a fully equipped kitchen, so we could kind of come in and get moving fairly quickly." He said the owners had wanted a second location for a while, and this one is "only about five minutes away" from Columbia Street. Jeske called the opening "another milestone in the transformation of Finley Golf Club" in UNC Athletics' announcement.
The connection to UNC Athletics goes back further. Merritt's has served sandwiches near UNC football games and at the U.S. Open in Pinehurst. Finley, home course for the UNC men's and women's golf teams, is its first permanent space outside Columbia Street. Chapelboro's quarterly business roundup listed the Finley opening among the August changes in Chapel Hill.
Lunch at the trailhead
For The Oaks, the most useful thing about this location is what's past the clubhouse. The North Carolina Botanical Garden lists Old Mason Farm Road and the Finley Golf Club as the primary driving route to Mason Farm Biological Reserve. The route goes through Finley's parking lot and then follows a 0.3-mile gravel road to the reserve's own lot.
The reserve's main loop is the 1.8-mile Old Farm Trail, which runs through bottomland meadows, old-growth swamp forest, oak-hickory forest and beaver wetlands. It connects by the Mason Farm Trail to the 127-acre Parker Preserve. A BLT in the clubhouse before or after the loop turns the outing into a whole morning.
Mason Farm has its own rules, and the creek decides whether you can get through. Here's the order that works:
- Get the permit first. The reserve is a wildlife conservation and research site, so every visit requires a permit form. It's open dawn to dusk, 365 days a year.
- Check the creek gauge before leaving home. Just before the reserve's parking lot, the gravel road crosses a low-water bridge that usually has water running over it. The Botanical Garden says crossing is typically safe when the USGS gauge reads below 4.5 feet. Its rule of thumb: if water covers the bridge and you can't see concrete, the water is at least 10 inches deep on the far side.
- Respect the gate. Staff may close the gate before the bridge when crossing looks unsafe, and crossing is prohibited while it's closed. Conditions can change quickly even when the gate is open.
- Have a backup route. When the bridge is closed, you can still reach Mason Farm from the Parker Preserve side.
- Eat at whichever end of the walk suits the weather. Breakfast sandwiches are served until 10:30 a.m. After a cold loop, the 60 indoor seats are close by.
Our September post on Mason Farm covered how access from The Oaks side has changed since the 2025 storm. The Finley lot is the entrance the Botanical Garden lists first. Mason Farm closes at dusk, and dusk comes early in late November, so a morning walk followed by lunch gives you the most daylight.
Golfers can book public tee times up to 10 days ahead and use the rebuilt practice facilities. Everyone else gets a sit-down room for the town's best-known sandwich, open on Sundays, beside the road to a 1.8-mile loop through river bottomland.
If you'd like to talk through how a Sunday at Finley and a morning on the Old Farm Trail fit into life near The Oaks, Brooke Gelhaus is glad to share what she knows about this corner of Chapel Hill. Let's Connect.