Chris Griffith starts to smile as she glances out the window of her second-story office. Below, the midday activity is starting to pick up along the corner of Fourth and Spruce streets. Diners shuffle in and out of restaurants, gym-goers and dog-walkers scurry up the street, and a downtown that appeared to be on its last breath suddenly seems very much alive, even in the dead of winter.

“There’s something going on down there,” Griffith says. “I don’t know what it’s going to be, but there’s an energy building.”

That energy is what Griffith and her business partner — Phil Hanes, former CEO of Hanes Companies — have been trying to cultivate for nearly a decade. Hanes has long been one of downtown’s biggest proponents, spending much of his retirement focusing on ways to rejuvenate the core of the city. He hired Griffith, the former executive director for the Winston-Salem Symphony, 10 years ago to work alongside him. Since then, he’s dubbed her “the most powerful woman in Winston-Salem” because of her ability to make his lofty visions a reality.

For example, when he suggested that Fourth Street would liven up if outdoor dining was introduced, Griffith talked to the city about widening the sidewalks. When he theorized that downtown restaurants needed to work more cohesively, Griffith formed the restaurant roundtable — a monthly meeting that unites many of the restaurant owners.

“I like flying under the radar,” Griffith says, referring to her relatively low profile. “I think most people assume I’m just Phil Hanes’ secretary. I’m fine with that, but we’re really in this together. He’s ‘idea guy’ and I’m ‘implementation gal.’ ”

Another one of Hanes’ ideas, and the unsung hero of the current revitalization, is the Meade Willis Revolving Loan Fund. Managed by the Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership, the Willis Fund offers low-interest or no-interest loans to restaurants, clubs, galleries, and other businesses looking to open downtown. It’s named after Meade Willis, a former Wachovia vice president and avid downtown supporter. After Willis’ death, Hanes talked Willis’ family into pledging $500,000 to start the fund. Since then, more than 25 businesses have been helped and more than $1 million doled out. And, since it’s a revolving loan, all of the money given out eventually comes back in, allowing other aspiring business owners to get a boost.

“It really was a brilliant idea,” Griffith says of the fund. “Much of the vibrancy you’re now seeing downtown wouldn’t exist without it.”

This vibrancy stretches well beyond the Fourth Street corridor, on past Trade Street, and down to the land of abandoned tobacco warehouses. That’s where, hiding in the shadows of the smokestacks, you’ll find Krankie’s — a former meatpacking-plant-turned-cultural-center — and its mastermind, John Bryan.

The Renaissance Man

To call Krankie’s a coffee shop wouldn’t necessarily be wrong, but it wouldn’t necessarily be right, either. Headquartered inside The Werehouse — a performance-art space and small-business incubator — Krankie’s emits the kind of creative energy that can power an entire town. The sounds and smells of the in-house coffee roaster vivify the space, while the wooden floors and brick walls set the mood. Caffeinated college kids, middle-aged couples, and laptop-toting professionals all find their place inside its warm, eclectic atmosphere.

At the center of it all sits the owner of the building, 33-year-old John Bryan. Modest and reserved by nature, Bryan doesn’t initially strike you as the kind of guy who’s helping lead a surge downtown. Still, there’s a quiet determination about him, an innovative spirit that seems to shine its brightest when the words “downtown revitalization” are mentioned.

A Winston-Salem native, Bryan found the 18,000-square-foot ramshackle of a warehouse while looking for practice space for his band. Where others saw blight, Bryan saw potential. He purchased the abandoned building for $60,000, then quickly went to work — converting the top floor into loft-style apartments and making the bottom floor an all-encompassing performance space. “We didn’t have a specific vision when we opened,” he says. “It was always more about creating a culture than experiencing financial success.”

Quietly, the space became the scene of a dynamic underground arts movement, hosting everything from punk concerts to film festivals to dance recitals. That is until 2001, when the city came to inspect the space and cited five pages of building-code violations. Bryan was told his business needed $160,000 worth of updates to stay open. Just when the end seemed inevitable, the Willis Fund came to the rescue, providing the means to rewire, remake, and reopen the space.

“[The fund] saved us,” Bryan says. “It’s something that’s so unique; it really doesn’t get enough credit.”

Since then, Krankie’s has continued its improbable success story, experiencing its best financial year ever in 2009. Last year also saw Bryan turn his attention to a new project, Single Brothers, a micro-sized throwback bar on Trade Street. Like seemingly everything else he touches, the business has flourished.

As for the future, Bryan won’t make any direct statements, simply saying that he — along with business partners Dave Franklin and Mitchell Brit — has a “pocket full of surprises” in store. After all, with downtown on the cusp of what he calls a “renaissance,” now’s not the time to slow down.

“Part of the excitement is that Winston-Salem is starting to form its own downtown identity,” he concludes. “People aren’t looking outside the city for great ideas anymore. They’re starting to realize that the great ideas are right here.”

krankiescoffee.com.

The Visionary

Back up Fourth Street inside the Chatham Building, Richard Emmett is working on a big idea of his own. As the COO of the Arts Council, he’s overseeing work on an $11 million project that’s transforming the Sawtooth Building into the Downtown Center for the Arts — creating new galleries, classrooms, and a 300-seat black-box theater.

Managing big ideas is nothing new for Emmett, though. The Pittsburgh native brought plenty of them with him when he came to Winston-Salem 15 years ago.

One day, not long after he arrived, Emmett was perusing downtown sites when he came across an abandoned building at the corner of Seventh and Trade streets. In its previous life, the building served as a radiator garage, and later, a welding garage. Emmett would eventually make it The Garage, an Arts District fixture that’s slowly, and almost indisputably, become the city’s best spot for live music.

That’s not to say there weren’t hardships along the way, though. Like Krankie’s, The Garage has been swamped in legal wranglings in the past. In fact, it nearly closed in 2001 because of numerous safety-code violations. But, just as it did for Krankie’s, the Willis Fund came to the rescue. It offered a $25,000 loan to get the club up to code and make some aesthetic upgrades.

Now, in addition to being a fully-functioning bar, the venue brings some of the most diverse and talented musical acts to town. “Because of our size, we can’t really bring any national headliners here,” Emmett says. “But you can see the stars of tomorrow here today, and see them in a really cool, intimate place.”

Along with The Garage, Emmett had a big hand in kick-starting events like Summer on Trade, Films on Fourth, and the RiverRun Film Festival. When he left town in 2005 to take a job with the Nash County (NC) Arts Council, many wondered who would fill his shoes. Luckily, they didn’t have to wonder long — Emmett was back a year later, taking a job as Executive Director of the Children’s Theatre before moving on to the Arts Council. He still keeps tabs on what’s going on at The Garage, but leaves most of the day-to-day operations to his wife, Kim Lawson, the bar manager.

As for why he left and then jetted back to town: “You get burnt out and jaded when you’re working on all these projects, trying to make things happen,” he says. “But then you leave, and you realize how special this area is; you realize how great the downtown has become.”

the-garage.ws.

The Defiers

While The Garage brought a new sound to Trade Street, it was Stephanie Tyson and Vivian Joiner who brought a whole new flavor. The women opened Sweet Potatoes in 2003 as the first sit-down restaurant in the Arts District.

Inside, the café’s soft orange walls, dark wooden furniture, and impressive bar create a space that feels both comfortable and stylish. Jazz music hums in the background while original artwork livens up the walls.

But the restaurant’s main attraction, without question, is the food. Described as “comfort food with flair,” the menu features down-home, southern-inspired cooking at its best, with sweet potato-fused dishes earning much of the praise. It’s odd to think then, considering the mob of daily lunch-goers, that Sweet Potatoes was considered dead on arrival by some.

“When we told people we wanted to open on Trade Street, they said it’d never work,” Joiner says. “They said there wasn’t enough foot traffic. But we didn’t really want to be anywhere else, so we ignored them.”

They found the perfect spot at 529 N. Trade St., the site of a former coffee shop. While the location was ideal, the building was far from it.

“The place was a wreck,” Tyson recalls. “The floor was mostly dirt, the bar was in pieces, the kitchen area was a concrete shell. It needed a lot of work.”

A lot of work meant a lot of money — something the duo severely lacked. While they applied for city loans to help cover costs, they were repeatedly turned down. That is, until they got a call from Phil Hanes. “We got home one day and had a message from this guy named Phil Hanes,” Joiner recalls. “We didn’t know who Phil Hanes was. But he knew we wanted to start a restaurant and said he could help.”

Before agreeing to help, though, Hanes wanted to test their culinary talents. He asked Joiner and Tyson to cater a dinner party for him and some friends. As expected, the women didn’t disappoint. The grouper, the grits, the sweet-potato cheesecake — Hanes loved it all. He then introduced them to a few movers and shakers in town and helped them reapply for a loan. This time, the city approved. In addition they were granted a $50,000 loan from the Willis Fund.

“He never gave us money,” Joiner says of Hanes, “but he did introduce us to people who could help.”

sweetpotatoes-arestaurant.com.

The Mycelium

This leads back to Hanes’ office, where a still-smiling Griffith is talking about downtown’s future; about the proposed Civic Plaza, the new arts center, and the growing buzz surrounding the city she loves. While outsiders looking in might see what’s going on downtown and assume it happened overnight, Griffith knows better. She likens it instead — oddly enough — to growing mushrooms.

“When people think of mushrooms, they think of the part we eat,” she says. “What they don’t realize is that the part we eat is just the fruit of this stuff called mycelium. It’s an underground network of roots that can stretch for miles.

“So what you’re seeing now,” she continues, “is all those mushrooms flowering. You’re not seeing the people who spent years in the dirt helping those mushrooms grow.

“But the mycelium connects at the dirt level; that’s where this wide network of people came together to help downtown grow. And what do you get when that happens? You get what we’re seeing now. You get life.”