An "Art Institute of Raleigh-Durham" is opening Aug. 21 in the American Tobacco complex. The private, accredited school will offer bachelor's and associate's degree programs in food, clothing, graphics and interactive media design, and marketing for those fields.

The institute's 34,000 square feet will accommodate classroom, computer lab, library and office space. The Durham location is a branch of the Art Institute of Charlotte, which is itself a branch of The Art Institutes International, Inc., a subsidiary of Education Management LLC of Pittsburgh.

Enrollment is open. Call (888) 245-9593.

Farm fresh

The new Eno Restaurant & Market is opening later this year in the Tempest Building (old fire station), on Roxboro Street at City Hall Plaza.

Operators are Richard Holcomb and Sarig Agassi, partners in the Zely & Ritz restaurant in Raleigh, and Jamie DeMent, who is Holcomb's partner in Coon Rock Farm of Hillsborough. Coon Rock will be supplying most of the Eno Restaurant's food, including vegetables, fruit, bacon, pate, sausage, honey and family recipes. The menu will be determined by what's available at the time. Besides serving lunch and dinner every day, the partners are running a retail market for area produce.

Tip of the hatter

Mad Hatter's Cafe, in the Whole Foods shopping center on Broad Street, has been bought.

Owners Jason Balius and Grace Nordhoff sold the business last week to Robert and Fida Ghanem.

The Ghanems also own Saladelia on University Drive and plan to open another location by the end of the month at American Tobacco.

Ghanem said the new owners plan to make no major changes to Mad Hatter's operations.

Ringing in

Alltel Wireless has a new Durham store, next to Pet Supermarket in the New Hope Commons shopping center on Mt. Moriah Road at Chapel Hill Boulevard.

The store allows customers to sample applications such as voice-to-text conversion and Alltel TV.

Hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, to 6 p.m. on Saturday and from noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday.

$ign of the times

Gas is going up.

No, not that kind. The kind you heat your house with.

PSNC (nee Public Service Co. of N.C.) said this week it's raising its residential rate by 15 percent. According to PSNC, that means an increase for customers of about $3.64 a month, based on average summer consumption.

But, when summer comes, can winter be far away?