Plain Jane’s Fills a Gap on Hillsborough Street

A new Hillsborough Street watering hole is keeping Raleigh bar nostalgia alive

If Pink Boot and Brooklyn Heights had a baby—it would be Plain Jane’s.

A handful of Raleigh’s favorite bars are done and dusted—mere memories of last calls and hours after dark well spent. But the new watering hole on Hillsborough Street aims to preserve their legacy under one no-frills, completely offline roof.

Like a Pink Boot on steroids—but grungier—Plain Jane’s will be a Raleigh time capsule of sorts, scattered with a plethora of memorabilia and old bar signs the owners have collected over the years. Think literal relics from OGs like Sadlack’s Heroes, Pink Boot and Brooklyn Heights, plus a bar top crafted from lanes salvaged from Hillsborough Street’s former The Alley—all serving as tributes to the city’s beloved bar scene.

“Everybody’s got that one place they wish was still open,” says one of the co-owners, who wished to remain anonymous. “Maybe you can come in here and it can make you feel a little better when you see an old sign, remember a place or remember a friend from that place.”

Set to open later this summer in the former Green Monkey (and never-materialized Rabbit Hole) space, Plain Jane’s is the essence of its name—plain, in the best way. Beyond the fresh bar and coat of paint, they just “hung some shit up and bought some bar stools.” 

Not fitting neatly into any one category of “bar,” it’s not exactly a dive, and it’s certainly not a cocktail lounge—it’s just a, well, “plain” bar, says the co-owner.

“We don’t have any one identity,” he adds. “We just want everybody to come and have a good time.”

The old-school philosophy extends to the drinks too. There won’t be a cocktail menu—“We’re gonna go back to before craft beers were around is the best way to describe it,” he says—but there will be a fresh coat of paint, a pool table, couches, two-tops and 14 bar stools—alongside the occasional DJ and live music. 

“We’re just gonna let all that stuff happen on its own,” he maintains. “If it’s not needed, we won’t do it.”

The opportunity to join popular nearby spots like Gussie’s, The Bend, and Wolfe & Porter was one the owners simply couldn’t pass up. But while Morgan Street leans “the 30-and-up, I’ve got a little money and I want to get out of Glenwood crowd,” he says, Plain Jane’s will bring some grit to the area.

“Hillsborough Street needs to be livened up,” he asserts. “And I feel like this bar can serve as a place for everybody… It’s everything Raleigh needs.”

So while it might be “plain,” Plain Jane’s is betting that uncomplicated simplicity is exactly the kind of nostalgia locals can get behind right now. More than recreating old bars, it’s chasing something harder to preserve: the feeling of a Raleigh that longtime locals still miss.