Mooresville's Newest Restaurant Is Named for a Well That Still Works
"If you look at old maps of Iredell County, before Mooresville was created, it didn't say Mooresville. It said Deep Well. And that was the well."
William Carrigan said this in 2023. He was talking to the Charlotte Observer on the porch of the 1852 farmhouse at Carrigan Farms on N.C. 150 East, and he was pointing at an old well beside the house. Three years later, Joe and Katy Kindred gave that name to their new steakhouse on North Main Street. Deepwell opened on Wednesday, Sept. 16.
Most new restaurant names are branding. This one points to a real place, and the well it points to has been on the same farm since before the town existed. The farm also opens its busiest season this week.
The Mooresville Museum's history tells it like this. Families who settled the area as early as the mid-1700s "formed small communities that eventually grew into the community known as Deep Well, which took its name from a large natural well that was found in the area." The museum's walking tour describes the town as growing "from a back country settlement around a deep well" into a village by the eve of the Civil War.
The railroad came next. In the late 1850s, John Franklin Moore built a depot and helped start a village around it, first called Moore's Siding. The town incorporated as Mooresville in 1873. That was the same week a village to the south called Craighead incorporated and renamed itself Huntersville.
So the name Deep Well came before the depot, the town charter and the town's own name. According to William Carrigan, the well itself is older than the farmhouse beside it.
"That well was dug before this house was built. When the original Hargrave family started living here, before the Carrigans bought the land, they needed a clean source of water. So the first thing they needed to do whenever they settled was to dig a well. And that's the well."
The Carrigans bought the farm in 1902, and the family has lived in the 1852 house ever since. William called the well "a little decrepit now," but he said it still works. You could lower a bucket and pull up clean, drinkable water. He also said his grandfather used to lower a watermelon into the well to chill it on hot summer days.
When the Kindreds announced Deepwell in May, the Charlotte Observer said the name was likely a nod to that early settlement. Mooresville Now reported that the name honors the town's early history and the settlers who gathered around the well.
The building has history of its own. Deepwell sits at the corner of Main Street and Moore Avenue, in the space that most recently held JJ Wasabi's. By late May, renovations had been underway for more than a year. An older Mooresville Tribune photo caption puts Keeter's Taxi headquarters on that same corner, back before the sushi restaurant was there.
The building sits next to the Moore Avenue pedestrian plaza by the Charles Mack Citizen Center. The town closed that half-block to cars on Nov. 18, 2024. Since then it has run with temporary barriers and painted pavement while the permanent streetscape project is pending. The opening announcement promised a "lively indoor-outdoor bar," which puts the plaza right outside the busiest part of the restaurant.
Joe Kindred has pointed out a likeness to the couple's first restaurant in Davidson. "It's kind of crazy that you know we're opening a restaurant on Main Street, and it's very similar layout. It's in an old historic building," he said in May. The team's own announcement describes Deepwell as "designed to feel like it's always been here, woven into the fabric of a town we deeply admire."
Chef Craig Deihl leads the kitchen as executive chef and co-owner. He is the Kindred group's corporate chef and is known for his charcuterie. The announcement promised the "long-awaited return" of that charcuterie, along with dry-aged steaks and chops. It also described a glass-enclosed dry-aging and curing room you can see from the dining room. Plans called for working with W8 Ranch, a North Carolina Wagyu producer. The ranch is in Ennice and raises full-blood Japanese Wagyu.
CharlotteFive's opening-day write-up describes a New Orleans-style menu with North Carolina touches:
The bar plans included New Orleans classics such as the Sazerac and the French 75. A private dining room seats up to 25.
Tables were hard to get from the start. The night before opening, CharlotteFive found that the first open reservation for two was Oct. 14 at 8:30 p.m. That was the wait two weeks ago, and it may have changed. Here's how the restaurant handles seating now:
Hours. Dinner is Wednesday and Thursday from 5 to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 5 to 10 p.m., and Sunday from 5 to 9 p.m. Deepwell is closed Monday and Tuesday.
Reservations. The main dining room takes them.
Walk-ins. Bar seats and high-top tables are first come, first served.
Check Deepwell's site before you go, since hours can change while a new restaurant settles in.
The Kindreds' original Davidson restaurant has been closed since a spring fire. The owners have told guests, as News of Davidson reported, that Kindred will take reservations again starting Oct. 20. In May, the owners said Kindred was expected back at about the same time Deepwell opened. Now Kindred will reopen about five weeks after Deepwell.
The farm that still has the well is also opening its busiest stretch of the year. The well sits beside the family home and is not listed as an attraction, so visitors come for the fields. William Carrigan has described the farm as mainly pick-your-own apples, strawberries and pumpkins. His father started that business after selling the family's dairy herd. Here's what is scheduled for October:
The schedules overlap neatly. A 2 p.m. or 3:15 p.m. apple session on Thursday, Oct. 8, Friday, Oct. 9, or any day from Wednesday, Oct. 14, through Friday, Oct. 16, ends before Deepwell opens at 5 p.m. That makes it easy to pick apples at the farm in the afternoon and eat on Main Street that evening. Deepwell is closed on the Monday and Tuesday apple dates, Oct. 12 and 13.
Downtown is busy on two early October evenings, too. The Festival of Food Trucks fills Broad and Main streets from 5 to 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3, the same day pumpkin season opens. Arts & Acoustics follows on Friday, Oct. 9, from 6 to 9 p.m. On both nights, expect the Deepwell walk-in seats at the bar and high-tops to fill fast.
Mooresville was Deep Well before it was Moore's Siding, and the original well is still on the Carrigan farm. This October, Deepwell's new dining room on North Main and the farm that kept the well will be open the same weeks.
I've lived around Lake Norman for nearly 20 years, and stories like this one are a big part of why I love it here. If you have a Mooresville history question, want a dinner recommendation, or know a story behind a Main Street building, I'd love to hear it. Mary Kay Portaro is always glad to talk about the places that make this town what it is. Let's Connect.
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