🗞️ Brother Cluckers closed Saturday, after four years on Union Cross

🗞️ East came up a yard short, and Glenn got its first win

🗞️ Sixteen restaurants are giving part of Wednesday to teachers

🗞️ A Kernersville caregiver is getting a new HVAC system for free

☀️ Mostly sunny | High: 82°F | Low: 62°F

Labor Day is the day the forecast promised. Mostly sunny, a high of 82, an east wind of 6 to 9 miles an hour, and a 10 percent chance of rain, which is the weather service's way of saying no. Tonight goes down to 62, the coolest night we have had since spring. Tuesday is mostly sunny and 84, Wednesday sunny and 87, and by Thursday we are back near 90 with afternoon storms creeping into the picture from Thursday night through the weekend. So this is the one. Cook outside, sit outside, and leave the windows open tonight.

The chicken place a quarter mile off the interstate is done.

Brother Cluckers, at 1547 Union Cross Road in the Union Cross Station shopping center, announced on Facebook that it closed for good on Saturday, Sept. 5, “effective today.” The post thanked customers, staff and the community, called it a difficult decision, and gave no reason.

The restaurant opened June 13, 2022, in a former Subway, and it was not a first attempt by anyone. The three owners were Andrew “Bobo” Bobotsiares of Bobo's Deli and Grill and the Mayflower Seafood chain, Deiby Ascanio, also a Mayflower partner, and Johnny Pappas of Fratellis Steakhouse, Three Bulls and Sammy G's. The idea started as a “Mayflower Express” and turned into chicken because, as Bobotsiares told the Journal at the time, chicken places were trending. Hand-breaded cornmeal tenders, fried flounder and shrimp, twelve house sauces, 40 seats and a drive-thru.

Pappas said then that Kernersville was a test case, a menu built simple on purpose so it could be replicated. “We'd really like to open more units.” Four years later, the first one is closed, and there is no second one. The owners did not say why, and we are not going to guess for them. What we can say is that a restaurant built by three people who already run a dozen of them, at an exit that gets plenty of traffic, still did not make it to a fifth summer. That is worth noticing the next time someone tells you a spot by the interstate cannot miss.

If you are holding a gift card, the post did not say what happens to it.

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Both Kernersville teams played Friday night, and the results went in opposite directions.

East Forsyth lost 13-7 at home to Grimsley, the undefeated defending 7-A state champion, and it was closer than that reads. The Eagles led 7-0 at the half on a 24-yard Jackson Jordan run, forced three fumbles and recovered all three, and Josiah Werts blocked a Grimsley extra point. Then Grimsley scored twice in the third quarter, on a 1-yard run and a 56-yard run, and East could not answer. The numbers that decided it: 4 of 12 on third down, 0 of 4 on fourth. The last of those came at fourth-and-2 with 1:20 left. “We came up a yard short,” coach Todd Willert told Kernersville News. Jordan finished with 96 rushing yards and 103 passing. East is 2-1.

Across town, Glenn beat Parkland 26-6 to even its record at 1-1 after the loss to East in the opener.

Friday, East hosts Ragsdale, which sits at 0-2 after storms wiped out its game last week. Glenn goes to Southwest Guilford. Both kick off at 7.

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Wednesday is the easiest fundraiser you will do all year. You eat.

Eating for Education is the Kernersville Chamber's last one of the year, and sixteen restaurants have signed on, a record: Blue Skies Creamery, Captain Tom's Seafood, Chicken Salad Chick, Domino's, East Coast Wings & Grill, Fitz on Main, Fresh Monkee, Gypsy Road Brewing, the Walkertown McDonald's, Mr. Poke's, Outwest Steakhouse, Sammy's Sliders, Sixty-Six Grill, Smitty's Grille, The Loop Pizza Grill and Whataburger. Each donates a portion of Wednesday's sales, 7:30 in the morning to 8:30 at night, to the Chamber's teacher grant fund.

Those grants go to teachers at the schools your kids actually attend: the seven Kernersville-area elementaries, East Forsyth, Kernersville and Southeast middle, East Forsyth and Glenn high, and NC Leadership Academy. Last year the Chamber handed out 24 of them, up to $1,000 apiece, and teachers spent the money on classroom supplies and the kind of lesson equipment a school budget does not cover.

If you would rather shop than eat, Shopping for Education runs Tuesday through Saturday at participating merchants, and Savage Roasters will round up your coffee for the same fund Oct. 5 through 31.

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Elizabeth Needham has spent a long time taking care of other people. This month somebody took care of her.

Needham, of Kernersville, is the primary caregiver for her mother and her father-in-law. She has served at Two Cities Church in Winston-Salem for more than a decade, in children's ministry and as a worship leader, leads mission trips to Guatemala every year with Dare for More Ministries, and shares the gospel with inmates at the federal prison in Butner. Her HVAC system, meanwhile, is very old, has trouble cooling much of the house, and replacing it was a bill she had been worrying over.

A family member nominated her for Lennox's Feel the Love program, writing that she “has lived her whole life serving and helping others.” Lennox agreed. Sutton Brothers HVAC, Plumbing and Electrical will install the new system, at no cost to her, in late September.

Sutton Brothers is also sponsoring a Red Cross blood drive Thursday, Sept. 10, noon to 4 at Reynolda Church, 367 W. Bodenhamer St., if you are looking for a way to pass it along.

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