Dunkin opens in Biltmore Village, marking Helene recovery progress

A new Dunkin at 781 Biltmore Avenue has turned one of Biltmore Village’s storm-damaged corners back into a working storefront, adding 20 jobs and another daily-use business to a district still rebuilding after Helene.

The restaurant opened Friday, April 17, in the former Long John Silver’s site that was destroyed when Hurricane Helene swept through Western North Carolina on Sept. 27, 2024. Dunkin’s Asheville directory now lists the Biltmore Avenue location as open, making the return visible not just as a ribbon-cutting but as a sign that private investment is coming back to a corridor hit hard by flooding and damage.

The scale matters. The new store is about 1,800 square feet and includes indoor seating for 14 guests, outdoor seating for 10, a drive-thru and free Wi-Fi. An official grand opening celebration is planned for May 2026, with guests eligible to win free coffee for a year. For a neighborhood where convenience traffic and retail visibility still shape the pace of recovery, those details show a business designed to draw both commuters and nearby workers back into the area.

The reopening also lands in the middle of a recovery that is far from finished. Historic Biltmore Village says the district is still moving forward rebuilding after the storm and is urging support for businesses and organizations reopening there. Nearby vacant and boarded-up storefronts remain a reminder that not every parcel has returned to active use, even as individual spaces come back online.

That uneven picture has been part of the discussion since the storm. A February 2025 WNC Business report said the Biltmore Village Association had been holding weekly triage meetings with municipal officials on flood maps, permitting and rebuilding, and that many businesses in the area either lacked flood insurance or found their coverage fell short of actual damages. Kara Irani of the Historic Biltmore Village Association said older hardwood timber-frame buildings “did not get destroyed nearly as much as some of the newer-built buildings,” a contrast that underscored how Helene reshaped the village’s recovery.

The Dunkin opening does not resolve the larger rebuilding challenge in Biltmore Village. It does, however, mark another corner where the lights are on, employees are back and one more piece of the district is moving from damage to daily commerce.