DURHAM, N.C. – A Durham native has opened a new Checkers on Fayetteville Street.
What You Need To Know
Dobbin Bookman and his wife, Jocelyn Joseph, have opened up their first Checkers
The property where the drive-thru restaurant is located has been in Bookman's family for decades
The fast food chain is open 10 a.m.-3 a.m., seven days a week
Dobbin Bookman's family has had multiple businesses on the historic corridor near North Carolina Central University.
The land where the Checkers is located used to be an old pharmacy, then a bookstore and most recently a jazz center before Bookman decided to take the property in a new direction. His family has owned the land for decades.
“I always knew that I was going to end up here back in Durham at some point,” Bookman said.
When Bookman isn't in the Triangle, he works as the executive education director at Harvard Business School in Boston. He says the pandemic gave him an opportunity to explore some new business ventures.
“For a lot of reasons, the Checkers concept really fit us. One was the size,” Bookman said.
The building doesn't have a very large footprint, sitting at 954 square feet just off the roadway. The modular structure was delivered in parts, taking out a lot of stress that comes with normal construction.
“This building came to us in three parts on a truck. So one day people drove by on their way to work, and there was nothing here, and then on their way home from work, they saw this building here,” Bookman said.
With a goal of enriching the community, Bookman has hired 60 workers from Durham and the surrounding areas.
The new Checkers is open seven days a week.