After 12 years serving Creole-inspired brunch and soul food in Durham's historic Hayti district, Nzinga's Kitchen has closed its doors. Chef and owner Zuri Hester, known to regulars as Chef Zinga, opened the restaurant in 2014 as Nzinga's Breakfast Café and built it into a neighborhood institution known for fried jumbo wings, honey hot chicken sandwiches, and old-fashioned or sugar cinnamon French toast sticks.
Hester cited recent life changes and a new career path as the reasons behind the closure, according to the News & Observer. She is now studying to become a registered nurse, a shift she announced to followers on Instagram on August 21. Hester, 37, was just 25 when she first opened the restaurant, and she has since become a new mother and returned to school even as she kept the kitchen running at 826 Fayetteville St.
Calling the decision bittersweet, Hester said the love, relationships, and sense of community built at Nzinga's Kitchen will remain with her long after the ovens go cold. She said she plans to continue serving Durham in a different capacity, and that she will remember the customers who showed up in rain or shine. Hester considered those customers family, and credited the restaurant's staying power to the customers, employees, family members, and community partners who supported it, per the same account.
A Farewell Rooted in Family and Music
Hester partnered with Akili Hester on the restaurant, and the two will host a farewell event on September 26 at the Phoenix Event Center on Fayetteville Street, with tickets available through Eventbrite. The gathering is billed as a reflection of food, family, and community, and will feature baked goods from Alazá Mim of Bakeology alongside Nzinga's signature house-made slushies and strawberry lemonade.
The event will also raise money for Hillside High School's marching band, with $5 donated for every meal or clothing item purchased going toward the group's trip to the Sugar Bowl Parade. Hester has a personal stake in the cause: her nephew plays in the band. As Hoodline previously reported, the 80-member “Immortal Sting” Marching Band is trying to raise between $60,000 and $125,000 to send every student musician to New Orleans at roughly $1,500 per student, with band leaders noting the trip would mark the first time many of the students have traveled outside North Carolina.
The Weight of Closing in Hayti
Nzinga's Kitchen operated out of the Phoenix Crossing shopping complex, a stretch of Fayetteville Street that also houses neighborhood eateries like Wang's Garden and Mozzie's Cuisine & Deli, according to Discover Durham. The location carries historical weight: Hayti was established after the Civil War by freed African Americans and named after Haiti, and it was once known as part of Durham's Black Wall Street. The neighborhood lost more than 4,000 homes and 500 Black-owned businesses during 1960s and 1970s urban renewal and the construction of the Durham Freeway, as detailed by The Carolinian.
Against that backdrop, Chef Hester's 12-year run represents a notable chapter of Black-owned entrepreneurial resilience along the corridor, one that closes as the neighborhood's cultural institutions continue working to preserve its legacy. The Hayti Heritage Center, housed in the historic 1891 Gothic Revival St. Joseph's AME Church building, appointed an interim executive director earlier this year as it continues its mission to preserve Black history and support cultural arts in Durham, according to INDY Week. Hester's culinary reputation had already earned wider recognition before the closure: Nzinga's Kitchen was a runner-up for Best Wings in Durham County in INDY Week's reader-voted Best of the Triangle 2026 awards.
Part of a Broader Wave of Closures
Nzinga's Kitchen is not the only Durham institution to shut its doors this summer. It's a Southern Thing closed its downtown flagship in August after nearly a decade, citing rent and facility issues, a closure Hoodline covered as part of the same wave. Flavor Hills announced in mid-August it was closing all its brick-and-mortar stores and pivoting to catering, while South Durham brunch destination True Flavors served its last biscuits in June. Beyu Caffe closed its downtown coffee shop and restaurant on West Main Street in 2024, and Littler closed its restaurant on East Parish Street in 2025.
The wave of closures lands amid real financial pressure on independent restaurants nationally and statewide. The National Restaurant Association's 2026 economic outlook projected total U.S. restaurant sales would reach $1.55 trillion with only 1.3% real growth, warning that persistent operating cost pressures and tight household budgets continue to squeeze independent margins. In North Carolina, food service and drinking establishments added 991 jobs year-over-year entering 2026, bringing statewide hospitality employment to 460,983 workers across 22,000 businesses, according to the state Department of Commerce data reported by Spectrum News — growth that has not stopped a string of closures among small, independent operators.
Consumer spending power is also strained closer to home. Roughly 45% of renters and 20% of homeowners in North Carolina are considered housing cost-burdened, spending over 30% of their gross income on housing, according to state Department of Commerce housing assessment data — a squeeze that directly limits how much households have left over for dining out. Meanwhile, the North Carolina Restaurant & Lodging Association has pushed back against a proposed state ABC Commission baseline pricing rule on liquor, warning it would add further cost burdens onto local dining and drinking establishments already operating on thin margins.
For now, Durham diners have one more chance to say goodbye. The farewell event on September 26 at the Phoenix Event Center will give the community an opportunity to celebrate 12 years of Nzinga's Kitchen while sending Hillside High's marching band a step closer to New Orleans.
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