Servers greeted customers with smiles as they led them to tables. They returned minutes later with pitchers of sweet tea and silverware rolled in napkins. Conversation, laughter and the aroma of buttermilk biscuits floated through the restaurant as diners helped themselves to barbecued chicken, fried shrimp and other items at the buffets.

But it was a scene that some loyal McCall’s customers worried they would never see again. Seven months before, a single-engine plane had crashed into the restaurant, killing the pilot and shuttering the popular eatery.

At the restaurant’s re-opening last Wednesday, longtime customers Peggy and Ray Howell of Garner remembered how shocked they were when the news broke. Thankfully, no employees were hurt, but the restaurant, which was about an hour away from opening that day, had suffered extensive damage.

“I think our first comment was, ‘Where do we go to eat our collards?’” Peggy recalled. “Since I don’t cook collards, the best chance for me to get them is at McCall’s.”

“And the chicken pastry, that is delicious,” Ray added as he finished off a bowl of banana pudding. “The only fault I have when I come here is I eat too much.”

After so much damage, owners Worth Westbrook, Jim Grady and Randy McCall could have let the restaurant remain closed. But the day after the accident, the owners and employees were at the site trying to salvage furniture, equipment and food products.

“This is one of those things you just handle and move on,” Westbrook said. “The important thing to remember here is the building is mortar, concrete, wood and steel that can be replaced. If our staff or customers had gotten killed as part of the crash that would have become a really serious situation. We were blessed.”

The owners had an insurance policy that paid the restaurant’s 75 employees through April 1 of this year. On Wednesday, most returned to the restaurant they called their “second home.” With the addition of 15 employees, the restaurant now has 90.

“When you work with people as long as we have worked with them and you spend as much time with these people as you do your family, they are like your family,” Westbrook said. “One of the scary parts of shutting down a business is thinking how the employees are going to be affected, because they are out of a job. When we saw the crash, we knew we were insured and our employees would be OK.”

Three employees, manager Anthony Scrufari and servers Amanda Lowder and Danielle Jackson, were grateful to be back at McCall’s. After the accident, they wondered if the restaurant could rebuild.

“It looked like something out of a movie ... like something that had blown up out of a movie,” Jackson said. “It was so dark.”

After the plane crash, Scrufari went to work at the Goldsboro store, while Jackson took a job at Carolina Premium Outlets in Smithfield. Lowder worked at three different jobs but missed the down-home atmosphere of McCall’s. “It was terrible,” she said. “I just love all the McCall’s girls. They are like my family because I have been here so long.”

Many employees said they returned because they did not want to leave their dedicated customers. “A lot of these people have built up clientele,” said Scrufari. “[Customers] know when certain people work and come to see them specifically.”

Although employees returned to familiar faces, the restaurant itself looks much different. Gone is the open dining room. In its place, aisles with planters give diners more privacy while they eat and watch one of 10 new flat-screen televisions.

“We had a second chance,” Westbrook said. “Anything we wanted to change, we could change.”

Employees like the new look. “I think it looks 50 times better than it did before,” Lowder said. “I just think people are going to take to this one a lot more so than the old McCall’s.”

McCall’s Bar-B-Que & Seafood is at 10365 U.S. 70 West. Hours are 11 a.m. till 9 p.m. Monday through Sunday. The telephone number is 550-3877.