[birds chirping] [slow soft music] - The Bluffs is one of the crowning jewels of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

[slow soft music] [birds chirping] [traffic humming] It opened in 1949 with a gas station next door, which is now the visitor's center and gift shop door project that the government created in the aftermath of the Great Depression with a slight delay during World War II.

Once it was completed, The Bluffs was the first restaurant to open on the parkway.

My name is Cal Ledbetter and I'm the operator of The Bluffs Restaurant.

[slow soft music] [moves into lively guitar music] - The restaurant was first opened in 1949, and so there are generations of folks who came up here for Sunday brunches, weekends, camping.

[lively guitar music] - Tell me the significance of The Bluffs to you three sisters.

What is the significance?

- Our mother worked here in the '60s and '70s.

- Our parents would come to the park, especially on Sunday evening and have lunch under the trees.

[lively guitar music] - It's just a great way to get away from the city, the hustle bustle, and see a little bit about the country and the nature that is thriving up here and take pride in this magnificent parkway.

469 miles and we're almost in the dead center.

Mile marker 241 in Doughton Park.

[lively guitar music] - My name is Merrick Francis and I'm one of the chefs here.

We produce a lot of very good authentic food for The Bluffs.

- [Cal] We have a fried chicken, which has been very popular.

It is the same fried chicken that's always been served here.

- No, the fried chicken can be a long process.

I use lemon juice, then I use all my spices and marinate them for the next day.

And then when you fry it, actually all the spice just combine.

See people enjoying food is a satisfaction to me.

- When the restaurant and the lodge closed at the end of the 2010 season, people were really disappointed.

[bluegrass music] - Well, we knew it had been closed because they had closed the parkway.

- We really regretted when it closed and each year we would check online to see how it was coming along.

- There was an outpouring of interest in the community to bring back the restaurant and the lodge and the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation led the call to raise money in the community.

- There started to be a groundswell of interest of trying to find some other way of reopening.

That citizen activation helped get a funding grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission, as well as from the North Carolina General Assembly.

All together, the foundation and all the partners and communities have raised about a million dollars to make this restoration happen.

[bluegrass music] - I remember when this place wasn't occupied.

And when they started fixing it up, it was really exciting.

We'd stop by just to look in the windows and see how pretty it was turning out.

Whenever we get company or anything, we always bring them up here and they always love it.

- [Kevin] You feel that sense of the people who, in many cases, built the building, you know, their great-grandfather or their grandfather had a hand in building, you know, the trails and the steps that we're standing on, or the lodge or the restaurant.

It reminds me of the kind of attention that we need to pay when we restore the light fixtures or the counter.

- These rafters and these beams are actually from timbers in the area.

The kitchen's state-of-the-art, the building completely restored in its original condition with the original light fixtures brought down and put back up.

If someone were to walk in here today, and it happens all the time when people come, they can tell you where they were sitting because they can see themself in that space from 50, 60, 70 years ago.

[bluegrass music] - We donated to the Blue Ridge Foundation and I have a bumper sticker on my truck that says, "I helped save The Bluffs."

- It's not changed a bunch.

I can still look right back through there and see her in the kitchen.

[laughs] [bluegrass music fading] [moves into slow soft music] - There was a waitress, a young lady, who started here in 1949 as a teenager and she worked until the restaurant closed, and she worked from 1949 until 2010.

Her name was Ellen Woodruff Smith.

- [Interviewer] Yeah, that's a cute, I like your hair.

That's cute.

- [Ellen] Yeah, I had hair back then.

- [Interviewer] [laughs] You still have hair.

- I'm Ellen Smith.

- Paul Smith.

- I met him there and I was probably about 18, and Paul had to see me and he'd say, they called me my dual name Mary Ellen, and he'd say, "Hi, Mary Ellen."

I'd say, "Hmph."

He said, "I thought you was the happiest girl I'd ever seen in my life."

[laughs] Then he married me.

- We remember Miss Ellen, she's a really special person.

I remember that her husband would be in here, clearing the tables while she was working.

She always such a friendly person.

- And the public that they really appreciated that place.

Boy, you can't believe we'd be out in town somewhere and they'd recognize Ellen and they'd just stop us on the streets or anywhere.

- [Interviewer] I love your apron.

Is that your original apron?

- Uh huh.

- I love it.

So you wore that every day?

- Yeah, huh.

- [Interviewer] That's neat.

Tell me about the other ladies you worked with?

Did everybody wear blue aprons?

- Yes, uh huh.

We were like a family, all the employees.

This is myself, Ellen Smith.

This is Eva Parson.

She was a waitress at the coffee shop.

This is Catherine Jones and she was a waitress at the coffee shop and Madeline was a cashier and hostess.

We lived it there.

- When we endeavored to restore Bluffs, it wasn't just a physical restoration.

I've had more people comment on the fried chicken, or the biscuits, or the sweet potato pancakes, because we're not only serving the people who remember it as it was, but we're trying to recreate those memories for people who are here for their very first time.

[light upbeat music] - It's great to see people just enjoying themselves and going back in time or making new memories, because here there's nothing but beauty around you everywhere you look.

[light upbeat music] [birds chirping]