BUCKHANNON – After a months-long sabbatical, The World’s End Restaurant is returning to Buckhannon June 17.
Owner of the World’s End and chef Jon Arbogast said the Indo-Asian eatery will be housed above Trump’s Salon on Main Street, and they will be open for carryout and curbside orders from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Friday.
“I specialize in what I call Indo-Asian food, which is Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese, Korean and then we do some Indian food,” Arbogast said. “I also do Southern cooking, which means I specialize in Creole cooking and just good Southern home cooking.”
Arbogast says he dabbles in Mediterranean and Italian dishes, too.
Eventually he plans to open for lunch, and they will offer ‘speedy lunch,’ which will be set up like a buffet. They’ll additionally offer a sandwich menu and their main dinner menu will be available during lunch.
“The buffet will have a wide range, so one day we’ll be doing a Mediterranean buffet, one day we’ll be doing Indian buffet and then we may do a Cajun buffet,” Arbogast said. “During a special month like October, we’ll be doing a German October, but the main menu is mostly Thai, Vietnamese and Korean.”
The menu consists of several sections such as appetizers, soup, salad, Chef’s specialty, fried rice, noodle, stir fry and curries.
He said his first job was working at a Chinese restaurant at 16 years old, which is where he began learning how to cook Chinese food. Soon after, he was exposed to other types of cuisine from friends.
“We met a girl from Thailand named Samon and she started cooking Thai food for us and when I tasted the Thai food I was like, ‘oh my God,’ because it was so amped up with flavor, fresh herbs and the chilis, and I got really interested,” Arbogast said.
He said he wanted to give the people of Buckhannon a place to enjoy other kinds of food they might not have experienced before.
“We live in an area that doesn’t have a real range of ethnic food, and I grew up in an area where that’s all we ate, whether it was Vietnamese or Korean or traditional Chinese, Mediterranean food, things like that,” Arbogast said.
He said The World’s End has already been growing their own Thai chilis, ghost peppers, lemongrass, Thai basil and they plan to start growing Carolina Reapers.
“Rondal (Mitchell, who owns Trump’s Salon) has also been working on growing Japanese herbs for when we do sushi,” Arbogast said. “He loves rolling sushi, and that’s why I can only do sushi on Friday and Saturday nights.”
“I’m just happy to be back because I just don’t feel right unless I’m cooking,” Arbogast added. “It’s been very difficult because I figured it’s going to be an easy transition, going from [Dough Re Mi] to a new location, but now it’s been about a year-and-a-half since we closed down, so I’m just happy to finally be back.”
He said while The World’s End won’t be able to do a full sit-down dining experience soon, they hope to open up part of the space to individual parties on a reservations-only basis. The World’s End phone number is 304-439-2433, and Arbogast said this is the best way to place orders once they open. Specials will also be posted on their Facebook page.
