There’s a new corner of downtown Cary about to come alive. Lloyd’s Full Service, a neighborhood restaurant and bar from Early Bird Night Owl, the hospitality group behind The Durham and The Mayton, is targeting an August opening at 107 E. Chatham Street, right at the corner of Chatham and Academy.

The building has history worth knowing. Long before it was Gurkan’s Downtown Auto Repair, it was a 1951 Amoco filling station run by K.M. Lloyd, a name locals may recognize from old News & Observer archives. The new restaurant takes its name directly from him, and from the station’s original motto about service, a detail that shaped both the brand’s name and its whole visual identity.

What the local press is saying

The news has been steadily building for over a year now. Axios Raleigh broke the story back in late 2024, reporting on Early Bird Night Owl’s plans to bring the restaurant to this stretch of Chatham Street. Midtown Magazine and Western Wake NC both dug into the building’s deeper history, tracing the site back to the early 1900s and the story of K.M. Lloyd himself. Most recently, coverage from Downtown Cary’s own site and WhatNow confirmed the August opening timeline, with a full breakfast-through-dinner menu, coffee, cocktails, and weekend brunch planned for a covered outdoor patio with a fire pit and live music stage.

The brand behind it

At MRC, we had the chance to build the naming, brand identity, and placemaking for Lloyd’s Full Service from the ground up, our second project with Early Bird Night Owl after our work on The Durham, the Willard rooftop bar, and their annual Oyster Fest.

The brand centers on Sparky, a mascot who personifies the building’s mechanic-shop past, coveralls, wrench, and all, now carrying a tray of food and drinks instead of tools. A full set of hand-drawn illustrations rounds out the identity: cocktails, salads, the original gas pump, a vintage delivery van, and day-and-night illustrations of the building itself. The brand messaging and copywriting gave the whole system a voice: direct, a little playful, and rooted in the building’s own story, vintage-inspired without ever feeling costume-y.

Because this building is so tied to its physical place, the work didn’t stop at the logo. We partnered with the interior design and architecture team on placemaking throughout the space, including custom hand-painted signage inside and out, alongside a fully custom menu system.