Southern-Fried Tears

By John P. Ourand

Billy Campbell isn't on the South Beach Diet.

Nor is the Discovery chief training for a marathon.

But Campbell has lost a lot of weight over the past three months...ever since his favorite lunchtime restaurant, Carolina Kitchen, burned down because of an electrical fire in December. Adding to Campbell's sorrow: He can see the boarded-up restaurant from his office.

"He runs around aimlessly at lunch looking for something to eat now," Discovery's Annie Howell reports.

A true Southerner, Campbell became a regular at the Silver Spring eatery shortly after his company moved to the Washington, D.C., suburb from the restaurant-rich Bethesda area.

Visitors to Campbell's office always were greeted with well-worn menus from Carolina Kitchen, and wound up ordering take-out: scarfing down everything from fried chicken and collard greens to jerk chicken and candied yams.

Now Campbell is forced to navigate the suburban chain restaurants that have begun popping up in Silver Spring, though he has yet to visit most of them, and has yet to dine at the local Red Lobster, Howell assures us.

No word on when Carolina Kitchen will re-open, but the restaurant's owners say they will.