NEWTON GROVE, N.C. —  At noon on a breezy summer Thursday, Celia’s cafe is hopping. There’s a steady stream of customers coming and going as waitresses shuttle plates of chicken fingers, barbecue ribs and catfish to tables of families, farmers and retirees.

Celia’s is situated on Main Street and has served as a community gathering spot since it opened in the 1960s. Though the business has been sold and renamed over the years, the building is home to the longest-running restaurant in Sampson County, N.C. From the outside, that history shows. The many renovations and additions have left the squat building resembling a patchwork quilt: The seams are visible, and the pieces don’t perfectly match, but it has character and a feeling of warmth. Before the restaurant was rebranded last summer, it was known as Eddie’s, and before that, the story goes, it was Henry’s. Funny how things come full circle.

Now it’s in the hands of another Henry.

“I’m 27, but on the inside, I feel like I’m a 40-year-old man because everything was just kind of thrown at me.”
— Henri Luna ’21

Henri Luna ’21, the restaurant’s majority stakeholder, is 27 years old, and Celia’s is his second restaurant. Annabella’s, located 10 miles away, in Spivey’s Corner, N.C., is where Luna and his family got their start as business owners. “I’m 27, but on the inside, I feel like I’m a 40-year-old man,” Luna says, “because everything was just kind of thrown at me.”

In 2015, at 16 years old, Luna helped his mother, father, older sister and brother-in-law through all the stages of starting a new business. When other high schoolers were playing video games, Luna spent his time drafting a business plan, navigating the real estate market to buy land for the restaurant, and going to banks with his family to secure a loan. Now, managing Annabella’s and Celia’s is his full-time job. He handles purchasing, operations, financing and accounting. But one thing he doesn’t do is cook. His mom, Celia, and sister Anabel handle that. “I’m not that gifted,” he says with a laugh.

Despite lacking such culinary talent, Luna has turned Annabella’s and Celia’s into mainstays of Sampson County. New and regular customers come for breakfast, lunch and dinner. “Table 1,” Luna says, “every morning at 5:30, fills up with farmers. Table 6, about 9 o’clock is when the retirees come in. Every single day, those two tables, if you come in here in the morning, they’re going to be here.” He estimates that each restaurant sees some 300 customers a day, and he’s learned how to run the cafes in such a way that they serve as secure employment for his family and dependable places for customers to run into neighbors or share a laugh with friends. Luna compares the restaurants to an old country store. “They give everybody a place to gather,” he says, an essential piece of small-town living.

“We all get along. We all carry on foolishness and have a good time.”
— Gary Faircloth

Local retired businessman Gary Faircloth visits Annabella’s each morning. His wife would make him breakfast, he says, but he likes the ritual of going into town and visiting with people. “I’m a community person,” he says. “I enjoy being around in the community.” Before Luna’s family opened Annabella’s in Spivey’s Corner, Faircloth would drive into Dunn, N.C., to eat. He prefers to stay closer to home, and he enjoys the food and friends he meets up with. “We all get along,” he says. “We all carry on foolishness and have a good time.”

But having a place where the community could enjoy laughs took Luna’s family a long time to get to. Before they opened Annabella’s, family members worked in other restaurants, a meatpacking plant and as farmworkers. Constantly at the mercy of other business owners’ staffing needs, they faced frequent layoffs and job changes. So they started to dream of building something of their own. 

Owning your own business is hard. Luna says when Annabella’s opened in 2019, it was like “a slap to the face.” They weren’t prepared for the high turnout they received the first week. “Some people probably came in here and had a bad experience,” he says. “We ran out of food. We didn’t have enough change. We weren’t prepared.” At that time, Luna was a college sophomore studying supply chain management at NC State. He took classes during the week, and on weekends, he traveled home to Spivey’s Corner to do payroll, check in with vendors and do the bookkeeping. It was a lot, but he says, “I was doing it for my family.” 

To help the restaurant succeed, he immediately put what his professors were teaching in his business classes to work. “What I was learning was exactly what we were doing. … It was like studying twice,” he says. At first, Annabella’s was wasting food each day because they didn’t know how many customers to anticipate. Some days, they’d throw away $100 worth of food. On a bad day, Luna says, that number was closer to $1,000. “We were just kind of winging it,” he says. Then he discovered forecasting in class and learned how to predict, within 20 to 30 people, how many customers will come through their doors, and they’ve been able to minimize waste. “That sort of savings really comes in handy,” he says.

Bradley Ashbaugh ’95 MSE, ’19 PHD, a lecturer in the Poole College of Management, introduced Luna to forecasting and remembers him as both an engaged student and as “someone you couldn’t help but root for.” “I want people to be successful,” Ashbaugh says. But it’s just as important to him for students to think beyond themselves. “That’s the thing that Henri has. You can tell he has heart, that he is in it because he really wants to help people around him.” 

Larry Naylor, who visits Luna’s restaurants a couple of times a week, agrees. He calls Luna a “go-getter” who “has his head on straight.” “If he sees an opportunity, he’s going to make it work,” Naylor says. But he also notes that it’s not just Luna who brings the heart to the restaurants. Once last summer, when Naylor’s wife was sick, Luna’s mom handed him some red velvet cake and said, “Take this to your wife. Maybe she’ll feel better.” 

When Luna’s family started Annabella’s, he says they invested everything they had in it. “It was my parents’ house. It was every little bit of asset that we had at the time. … If it wouldn’t have worked out, we wouldn’t have had anywhere to live.” He’s grateful to his customers, and he says he and his family work hard to give good value and service at the restaurants. That’s why he believes in giving back to his community in small ways, like sending home a dessert, and in larger ones, like keeping his customers’ money local: “We’re going to continue reinvesting here in Sampson County,” he says. “It’s given us everything.” And he’s proud to offer good-paying jobs to residents. Between Celia’s and Annabella’s, his business employs 33 people.

“They take care of me. They feed me. They ask me how I’m doing. If we get in a big rush, they step in and help.”
— Annie Hayes

Annie Hayes has been working at both of Luna’s restaurants since 2020, when she was a freshman in high school. Now, a sophomore in community college studying to be an English teacher, she says the job is “a blessing” because of the support and flexibility Luna and his family offer. “They take care of me,” she says. “They feed me. They ask me how I’m doing. If we get in a big rush, they step in and help.” Hayes never saw herself being a waitress, but she enjoys interacting with the customers, who come for the lasagna, country-style steak and crab cakes, but also for the personal connection the restaurants offer. 

“We take care of our customers,” she says.

Luna is confident that his business model would work in metropolitan areas, but he likes living in a small town. “I live in a place … where you can get that sense of community, you can build those relationships. Everybody’s willing to give you a helping hand,” he says. “Being able to sit down with these people [at the restaurants] and talk to them and just build those relationships — those friendships — that turn into family, that’s something that I don’t ever want to give up.”

That sense of family has long motivated Luna. Growing up in a large household where money was tight, Luna learned early the value of relationships and serving others. He remembers his mom, still in her work uniform, standing in the kitchen making him a meal after school. “Food is something that has always brought my family together,” he says.

Celia, the woman whom Luna calls “mom,” is actually his oldest sister. When she was 19 years old, and Luna was 8 months old, their mother was no longer able to care for them. Celia stepped in and raised Luna and his siblings. “She may not have birthed me,” he says, “but as far as moms go, there’s no one better than her.”

“I earned that degree, but it’s almost like it’s her degree, too.”
— Henri Luna ’21

It was her suggestion that Luna attend NC State. No one in the family had visited campus or been to Raleigh before Luna applied, but, he says, “My mom just heard that people that go to NC State had better futures.” Never having celebrated a graduation of her own, Luna’s mom proudly displays Luna’s diploma in the center of her living room. “I earned that degree,” Luna says, “but it’s almost like it’s her degree, too.” And now both Celia’s and Annabella’s restaurants are a tribute to the family’s Wolfpack ties, with NC State pennants tacked on the walls and graduation photos propped up near the cash registers. Luna’s younger brother is also an NC State alum, and Luna encourages his employees and family members to consider college degrees. Since his graduation, he says, “Things are changing in our family, we have bigger goals, we have bigger dreams. … My nieces and nephews, their idea of what they want to do in their life is completely different from what I thought was possible when I was growing up.”

Luna gives a lot of credit to NC State and his professors. “NC State was a godsend,” he says. “For me, it was not just a school. NC State gave me the possibility of making this restaurant successful and giving my family a different way of life.” But a lot of the credit for Luna’s success is due to the work ethic and drive instilled in him by his mom. “I’ve always been ambitious, mostly because of my mom. She always gave us these little tidbits of motivation, things like, ‘If you’re going to dream, dream big. There’s no point in having small dreams.’”

That advice has stuck with Luna, who’s thinking beyond the family’s two restaurants. He’s currently looking into investment opportunities, selling Annabella’s side dishes wholesale at grocery stores, and even hog farming. “My plan is to retire at 55,” he says. “Between now and then, I’m just going to keep growing and investing and building as many businesses as I see fit.”

His forward-thinking mindset doesn’t end with his businesses. Luna’s family is expanding, too. He and his wife, Mary, welcomed their first child earlier this year. Throughout the whole pregnancy, Luna says his neighbors and customers brought gifts and asked about baby showers. They wanted to be involved from the start.

“We’re going to raise our son in a great community, and I know as he gets older, I’ll never have to worry about if he’s up to something that he isn’t supposed to be,” Luna says. “If he’s in Spivey’s Corner or Newton Grove, somebody’s going to have an eye on him at all times.” 

“There’s no place else I’d rather live.”
“It’s all because of the people.”
— Henri Luna ’21

“There’s no place else I’d rather live,” he says. “These are some of the best places that you could possibly live and build a family and a life in.”

“It’s all because of the people.” 

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