INDY November 26, 2025

Raleigh | Durham | Chapel Hill November 26, 2025

power to the food pantry by andrea richards, p. 20

The country is facing a mounting hunger crisis. In Durham, as the need grows, so does Emanuel Food Pantry.

Raleigh | Durham | Chapel Hill Vol. 42 No. 24 | November 26, 2025

Contents

News 5

After years of neighborhood advocacy, a developer has filed "underwhelming" plans for a shopping center on part of the the Northgate Mall site. BY JUSTIN LAIDLAW

8

Merrick-Moore is Durham's first Heritage Community. BY KENNEDY THOMASON

10

The Town of Apex could be headed toward a legal fight with a resident operating a parking lot for local high school students. BY JANE PORTER

12

Durham County is mapping food access. BY KENNEDY THOMASON

16

As Border Patrol agents fanned out across the Triangle last week, protesters and volunteers mobilized in defense of immigrant communities. INTRO BY SARAH WILLETS, PHOTOS BY CORNELL WATSON, CHLOE COURTNEY BOHL, LENA GELLER, AND JUSTIN LAIDLAW

Culture 14

Efland musician Katharine Whalen releases two lively new records this fall with bands Certain Seas and Whalen's Jazz Squad. BY JOE VANDERFORD

18

100,000 feet of wiring, 20,000 lights, and 14 acres: Inside the North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival. BY JASMINE GALLUP

20 With Emanuel Food Pantry, what started as a small program has grown into

Durham County’s largest emergency food assistance program.

BY ANDREA RICHARDS

24 26

Durham's Accordion Club may have shuttered, but a new bar inside the Geer Street space carries its dive spirit on. BY LENA GELLER Lunch Money: Three tacos with chicken tinga at The Burritaco Burger Grill.

BY LENA GELLER

Regulars 4

28

Backtalk

Calendar

Cover

The 10th annual Chinese Lantern Festival at Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, N.C. (see story on page 18).

Volunteers at Emanuel Food Pantry load boxes with produce and food to be handed out during a food distribution. PHOTO BY CORNELL WATSON

PHOTO BY LIZ CONDO PHOTOGRAPHY

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Contributors Mariana Fabian, Jasmine Gallup, Desmera Gatewood, Tasso Hartzog, Elliott Harrell, Brian Howe, Jordan Lawrence, Elim Lee, Glenn McDonald, Nick McGregor, Gabi Mendick, Cy Neff, Andrea Richards, Barry Yeoman

2 INDYweek.com November 26, 2025

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November 26, 2025 INDYweek.com 3

BACKTALK In our October 1 print edition, we published an op-ed co-authored by Durham City Council member Javiera Caballero and affordable housing finance specialist Ramsay Ritchie arguing for building more housing, both market rate and affordable, to address affordable housing needs in Durham. Readers continue to share their reactions.

From reader ANDY LOWE by email: Many Durham Progressives for too long have offered ineffective housing policies that don’t serve the working-class voters they claim to represent. Creating housing scarcity in the housing market via zoning ordinances and rezoning decisions hurts working-class residents.

These policies are sold as “affordable housing”, “public goods paid for by developers”, “density bonuses” that, in a narrow perspective, can help some (not all) low-income residents have housing, build additional parks, and (possibly) induce additional affordable housing. These policies, unfortunately, can and do combine to have a nasty side effect. Less housing, less types of housing, and less dense housing broadly in Durham.

When housing is scarce, our working-class residents lose out the most, existing homeowners enjoy higher and higher property values, and the city budget is strained thinner and thinner.

The opposition to upzoning combined with increasing costs to builders will decrease the overall supply and density of housing built in Durham. Costs incurred by developers who do build will be passed on to the renter/buyer who lives there. Fewer projects will be economically viable and won’t even happen. The projects that do happen will be less dense and more likely to be car based sprawl. All this and, existing homeowners/landlords get to jack up prices while everyone else pays.

So who is winning in this arrangement? Not working-class residents looking for an affordable rental, not young families who want to raise their kids in Durham and move out of that small apartment. The winners are current Durham property owners (including homeowners and landlords) who win more pricing power and the ability to use community engagement to prevent competition in their neighborhoods.

In short, Durham is suffering from classic Left NIMBYism masquerading as progressive politics.

Durham will not build the housing that is required in the coming years if the city council only allows increases in density on a case-

WANT TO SEE YOUR NAME IN BOLD? 4 INDYweek.com November 26, 2025

by-case basis and/or at a high regulatory cost.

Durham needs density in and near its urban areas and along transit corridors. Bringing more rezoning cases to the city council to fight out which projects are worthy will not bring affordability to the housing market. It will, however, allow for the Left NIMBY homeowners to control and curtail where new housing is built. We don’t need more community engagement. We need more homes and more types of homes at the lowest possible cost.

The Left NIMBY Progressive playbook does not work. Cities like San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles have played that game for years and only have succeeded in pricing out most of their potential residents. Durham should not take this bad deal. Legalize more housing, vote for upzoning, vote for a new UDO that grows with Durham.

From reader LLOYD SCHMEIDLER by email: Having worked with and for people experiencing homelessness for most of my career, I read with interest the op-ed by Durham Councilwoman Javiera Caballero and Ramsay Ritchie in the October 1st issue of the INDY. One strategy I encourage our elected leaders to consider would be the issuance of microbonds. In addition to or as part of a social impact bond, as suggested by Caballero and Ramsay, microbonds could become part of a community-wide initiative to address our community’s Affordable Housing Crisis.

Earlier this month Lena Geller wrote about a Walltown resident whose foundation was being destroyed by an open stormwater pipe in her yard, and the bureaucratic tangle around trying to fix it. Readers enjoyed the story, and some wrote letters asking the Durham City Council to intervene.

Reader JOHN SCHELP emailed the INDY and the council: Why are the curbs in front of Mandy McGhee‘s house in Walltown concrete—while the curbs

indyweek.com

backtalk@indyweek.com

up the hillside in Watts-Hillandale are granite?

Because the City didn’t pave the streets in historically Black neighborhoods until a generation later.

For more context, this house is on the same block where a Black World War II soldier was shot and killed by a white bus driver on a City bus. [For not moving fast enough from the second-to-last row to the last row.]

It’s across the street from Carrie Jackson’s house, a brave mother who courageously testified against the white bus driver, leaving Durham with her young children soon after the trial.

And, the house is next to a field of contaminated soil from an old City incinerator (back when the City’s toxic incinerators were located in historically Black neighborhoods like Walltown).

Now, the City is saying they can’t re-connect the two existing stormwater pipes because they can’t find any paperwork in their records?

This is all so fundamentally unfair.

Please do the right thing.

From reader KEN SCHLECHT by email: The solution to the problem in “Pipe Nightmare” with Mandy McGhee’s home in Durham seems pretty simple. The map in the article shows water from an enclosed stormwater pipe maintained by the City of Durham dumping onto Mandy [McGhee’s] property, then picked up by another enclosed stormwater pipe maintained by the City of Durham at the far end of McGhee’s property.

The City of Durham should connect their two pipes along the property border with stormwater inlet(s) from McGhee’s property along the way. There should be adequate slope between these two pipe locations. Common sense would say you can’t simply dump stormwater onto someone’s property and say it’s no longer the City’s responsibility! I understand the City doesn’t want any additional expenses, but let’s get practical and at least address the stormwater issue as soon as possible. Then the issue of foundation damage can be addressed.

@INDYWeekNC

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NEWS

Durham ILLUSTRATION BY NICOLE PAJOR MOORE

Arrested Development A developer is planning to turn one-third of the Northgate Mall property into a shopping center. Whether years of neighborhood advocacy will have an effect on future plans for the site is up in the air.

BY JUSTIN LAIDLAW jlaidlaw@indyweek.com

N

orthgate Mall, once an economic hub, was in decline for years before Northwood Investors purchased the site in 2018 with plans to transform the former shopping center.

In 2020, the mall permanently shuttered, followed by the 2023 closure of its adjacent movie theater.

In the meantime, Northwood Ravin, the development arm managing the construction process, has put forth various proposals that featured a mix of market-rate housing, retail, office space, a hotel, a park, and lab space. Residents in neighborhoods adjacent to Northgate Mall—like Walltown, Trinity Park, and Northgate Park—pushed for any redevelopment of the site to include affordable housing and other amenities that would benefit the neighborhoods rather than exacerbate further displacement.

But after years of negotiations between Northwood and residents failed to reach a consensus, a new company has submitted plans for a part of the site. Regency Centers, a

Florida-based development firm, is in the process of purchasing about a third of the site from Northwood and, in October, submitted plans for a 190,000-square-foot development that calls for the demolition of the mall, a 620space parking garage, and the old Stadium 10 movie theater.

In its place, the firm plans to construct a 140,000-squarefoot building ripe for a big-box retailer; five additional buildings, ranging from 3,000 to 20,000 square feet each, for retail and restaurant space; and 762 parking spaces. The new shopping center will be called Ellerbe Square.

“Our focus is to reactivate a long-vacant portion of the site and bring back essential retail and neighborhood-serving uses,” said Chelsea DuDeVoire, Regency Centers’ communications manager. “The plan includes an anchor that will bring back dependable everyday essentials and help meet daily retail and grocery needs in the area. While early leasing discussions are underway, a curated mix of addi-

tional retailers could include food and beverage, health and wellness, and small shops.”

It looks as though the new site plan will not include the proffers and amenities requested by neighboring residents, and because the plan—a mix of commercial uses— has nearly the same zoning requirements as the mall, the developer can move forward without city council approval.

Brandon Williams, chair of the Northgate Mall Committee for the Walltown Community Association (WCA), helped organize residents around creating a “small area plan” for Walltown that included a vision for the redevelopment of Northgate Mall. Williams described Regency’s plan as “a bit underwhelming.”

“Particularly given the years spent working on the small area plan and trying to officially instantiate the priorities we’ve advocated for … there’s not a process by which to enforce them, but I think it reflects a bit of tone deafness on the part of the developers,” Williams says.

Walltown Community Association has spearheaded the public engagement process with Northwood. In a statement released by WCA earlier this month, Williams said that “Durham deserves a transformational redevelopment of Northgate Mall, one that turns the mall into a place where all Durham residents—including those in the working class—have the opportunity to live, work, and play.”

Northwood Investors retains partial ownership of the site, and plans for those parcels are unclear. Williams and other community members say they remain optimistic about bringing Regency and Northwood to the table to reach a compromise for the overall redevelopment, but how much input neighbors will have in the future is up in the air.

B

efore Northgate Mall was built in 1960, Coca-Cola intended to relocate its Durham manufacturing plant to the site, but the industrial use was rejected by neighbors.

Instead, the Rand family, who owned the land, built Northgate Mall, following the trend of other shopping centers like Lakewood and Wellons Village that were constructed at that time.

Northgate Mall was an economic engine in the area for decades, offering retail, food, entertainment, and jobs. As November 26, 2025 INDYweek.com 5

a kid, I used to walk from my family’s home in Watts-Hillandale to the Sports Cards Unlimited store on Saturdays to play Yu-GiOh. (Before e-gaming became a viable—and lucrative—profession, my friend Ian and I won $200 in a Halo tournament at Northgate’s Gamefrog gaming café when I was 12; my parents had to sign a permission slip because the game was rated M for mature.)

But by the 2000s, Northgate, with traditional retail bays, food court stands, and classic carousel, was no longer the retail belle of the ball, outcompeted by downtown and higher-end Southpoint. Northgate Associates took out millions in loans to buoy the operation, but the investment wasn’t enough to stave off the decline.

Toward the end, Northgate’s main attractions were the DMV license place office, and fittingly, driving practice in the vast empty parking lot.

When Northwood Investors purchased the site from the Rand family in 2018, it agreed to take on the $62 million in debt Northgate had accrued. In response to the mall changing hands, residents from the neighborhoods that surround the mall— Walltown, Northgate Park, Duke Park, Trinity Park, Trinity Heights, Old West Durham, and Watts-Hillandale—formed the Northgate Mall Neighborhood Council (NMNC), which organized residents around a shared vision for the future of the mall site. At the same time, Northwood began its public engagement process.

Negotiations got off to a rocky start. In the fall of 2020, Northwood circulated preliminary design concepts that showed a mix of residential and commercial uses. The NMNC responded after conducting its own public engagement, requesting substantial affordable housing, affordable retail space, a transportation hub, community gathering space and resource center. Northwood pushed back on carrying the responsibility of meeting neighborhood needs.

“While we sympathize with the desire of the neighbors to have more affordable housing and affordable retail next to their homes,” Jeff Furman, former Director of Raleigh Operations for Northwood Ravin, wrote in a May 2021 email to then-mayor Steve Schewel, “this request for action needs to be directed to the City of Durham and its elected officials. Not to fellow private landowners.”

“Asking private landowners to solve the City’s issues is a misdirected mission,” Furman continued.

Even if Furman was right that Northwood could not solve Durham’s affordable housing challenges on its own, the public dismissal of Walltown residents’ concerns did not ingratiate Northwood with the commu6 INDYweek.com November 26, 2025

nity or local officials. In 2022, Northwood proposed a life sciences and retail campus that would have required rezoning approval from the city council. That gave NMNC leverage on its demands; the group successfully petitioned the city council to hold out on granting Northwood its zoning while the community continued to advocate for its plans to rehabilitate the old mall.

O

ver the past seven years, various plans have surfaced from both camps, but between shifts in the market, and pushback from residents, none were formally submitted for city approval.

During his run for city council, Nate Baker, a professional urban planner who served on the Durham Planning Commission from 2018 until joining the council in 2023, seized on the opportunity to coalesce Walltown residents, and potential voters, around small area plans—specific visions for individual neighborhoods within the city’s comprehensive plans.

Small area plans have no legal authority, but they are useful for steering decision-making around development and establishing development laws. Those legally binding ordinances are one of the few mechanisms that municipalities have to enforce design standards on private landowners. Baker, now the vice chair of the Durham Joint City-County Planning Committee, says Durham could have done its own rezoning of the Northgate property prior to Northwood’s involvement. He called Regency’s proposal “deeply disappointing.”

“We had a whole lot of leverage for many, many years,” Baker says. “We just kind of took our hands off the wheel.

We weren’t looking at major opportunity sites and thinking about what would be best for the city of Durham, for our community, and for our people, and just kind of allowed things to continue as they were with bad zoning in place. So as a result, the landowner can do a lot of things that they want to do, and one of those things is just to build big-box stores surrounded by parking.”

In August, after years of back-andforth, the City of Durham approved the Walltown Small Area Plan. Residents and city council members, including Baker, celebrated the achievement.

But even with the vision for Walltown’s future officially etched in the public record, Northwood and Regency still have the power to build without the need for city council approval. The small area plan, though it could inform future

Site landscaping plans and renderings for Ellerbe Square COURTESY REGENCY CENTERS VIA CITY OF DURHAM

An outdoor view of Northgate Mall in 2018. PHOTO BY EAMON QUEENEY

elements of the Walltown neighborhood, might be too late to impact the Northgate Mall site.

W

ith a plan sketched out for the part of the site that Regency plans to purchase late next year, community engagement for that portion seems likely to end.

DuDeVoire tells INDY Regency has no immediate plans for public engagement on the site but “recognizes the Northgate property’s long history of community engagements and has reviewed feedback that has been shared in past public processes.”

Still, Williams and Baker are cautiously optimistic that Regency will come to the negotiating table (Regency says no one from the WCA or Durham City Council had reached out to discuss redevelopment plans as of November 17.)

“We don’t know what the outcome is going to be yet,” Baker says. “First of all, there have been multiple submittals on the site, all of which have been inadequate. I mean, the lesson is, if you don’t do planning, good things won’t happen.”

While specific details about potential tenants haven’t been released, renderings as well as the track record of other properties operated by Regency Centers suggest a big-box store will anchor the new strip mall. Regency Centers already operates three other shopping areas in Durham—Shops at Erwin Mill, SouthPoint Crossing, and Woodcroft Shopping Center, none of which suggest that the new Ellerbe Square project will include the high density and mix of uses the community and city council have advocated for.

Once the first phase of the new project

has begun, retrofitting things like affordable housing and green space will become much more challenging, Williams says. Retail leases for big-box stores tend to last for decades, though that trend could be changing post-COVID. Still, whatever is built on the Northgate site is likely to endure for years, heightening the urgency for residents.

“You want to get it right from the beginning, because when you use half of the site up in this way, that means you just have less of the property to negotiate around for those benefits,” Williams says. “So to me, that makes it harder. But even if we can’t get the shifts on the current site plan, we still want to maintain our ability to negotiate on the remaining property that will still be developed by somebody down the line.”

Regency says it is designing its development to allow for additional uses on other parts of property.

“We see this as the first step in the broader evolution of the property, and we remain committed to ensuring this phase brings back meaningful, everyday retail benefits to the surrounding communities,” DuDeVoire said.

Walltown’s challenge is not unique in Durham. For the past three years, Hayti residents negotiated with Sterling Bay, owners of the Heritage Square, another defunct shopping center, over how to redevelop the site into something that would benefit the local community. After the two parties couldn’t agree on the list of proffers, Sterling Bay rescinded its application in August, leaving the future of Heritage Square uncertain.

Residents prevented what they consider

an inadequate project, but, as in the case of Northgate Mall, could end up with an even less desirable outcome if the developer chooses to build by-right on the site or sell the parcel to a developer less interested in collaborating with the local community.

For Williams, Baker, and others, part of the solution is giving residents more bargaining power through the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), the legal document that governs development in Durham. The planning department is in the process of rewriting the UDO and has hosted dozens of meetings to receive guidance on what residents want to see in the new version, which Baker and his council colleagues will vote on in the coming months.

“What we have in our toolbox as policy makers is carrots and sticks, and that’s how we can push policy that moves us forward as a more sustainable, walkable, and inclusive city,” Baker says. “We have carrots and sticks, and we need to use both carrots and sticks to make sure that we develop in a more walkable and sustainable fashion.”

Northgate Mall won’t be the last commercial site that Durham residents seek to reimagine. What can Baker, the city council’s resident urban planning expert who grew up near Northgate Mall himself, take away from the experience to produce better outcomes for his hometown?

“I don’t think there are any lessons to learn from other than ‘Doing nothing doesn’t provide better results,’” Baker says. “I would love to say we can learn from Northgate Mall on another site, but we haven’t succeeded on anything. We don’t have anything to learn.

We can learn from other communities.” 2

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November 26, 2025 INDYweek.com 7

NEWS

Durham The Merrick-Moore community was recently designated as Durham’s inaugural Heritage Community.

BOTTOM CENTER IMAGE COURTESY BONITA GREEN, BOTTOM RIGHT IMAGE VIA WIKIPEDIA; OTHER IMAGES COURTESY DURHAM COUNTY LIBRARY’S NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION

Living History Merrick-Moore is Durham’s inaugural Heritage Community. For the historic neighborhood, it’s a way to preserve the past—and protect the neighborhood’s future in a growing city.

BY KENNEDY THOMASON backtalk@indyweek.com

D

urham native Eileen Watts Welch was born into a legacy.

Watts Welch has been one of the forces preserving and collecting the history of the Merrick-Moore community as one of the great-granddaughters of John Merrick and Dr. Aaron M. Moore, the neighborhood’s namesakes (in 1916, Moore’s oldest daughter and Merrick’s oldest son married each other).

“I don’t want those stories to be lost,” Watts Welch says.

The neighborhood lies in northeast Durham, anchored around Hoover, Cheek, and Junction Roads.

Last month, Merrick-Moore was designated as Durham’s inaugural Heritage Community, a program created by the city’s Planning and Development Department to honor communities that have never been formally recognized by the city or county. The goal is to celebrate communities and help them gather research so they can apply for future local 8 INDYweek.com November 26, 2025

or National Register designations if eligible.

Merrick, who was born into slavery, met Moore while he was laying bricks at Shaw University, where Moore was a medical student, Watts Welch says. Merrick invited Moore to Durham to provide health care to Black residents, many of whom had left tenant farming and were moving to the city in search of jobs, she says. Merrick and Moore cofounded North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, the cornerstone of Durham’s Black Wall Street and the country’s largest African American life insurance company.

Moore founded Lincoln Hospital in 1901, which his sonin-law, Watts Welch’s father, later developed into the Lincoln Community Health Center in 1970. At the time, it was the only hospital within a 25-mile radius of Durham to treat Black patients.

Although Merrick and Moore weren’t involved in creating the neighborhood, which happened two decades after their

deaths, the neighborhood school was named in their honor.

“All Blacks who lived in the county, Durham County, went to high school at Merrick-Moore, and the county named that Merrick-Moore, knowing of all the contributions that both Merrick and Moore had made to education, health care, opportunities for business and family … during their lives,” Watts Welch says.

Watts Welch, who is president of the Durham Colored Library (which Moore founded), has worked in her role to preserve the community’s history. The Merrick-Moore Community Development Corporation (MMCDC) has led the efforts to collect and document history as well as preserve the neighborhood’s land.

The Merrick-Moore School was one centerpiece of the community. Completed in 1950 as a high school, it was home to three basketball championships and four runner-up finishes. It also held a football state championship.

During integration the school was converted to an elementary school, as it continues to operate today.

The other centerpiece of the neighborhood was Mount Zoar Baptist Church, which opened in 1865 and was relocated from nearby in “the bottom” to Merrick-Moore in 1953 as more residents moved to the area. Today, the school and the church stand facing each other along Cheek Road and continue to be places of pride for residents.

On November 1, community members gathered for a ceremony unveiling a historical sign outside Mount Zoar that details some of the neighborhood’s prominent places and celebrating the designation. In addition to the sign, the Heritage Community recognition includes an archive at the Durham County Library and a website dedicated to documenting the history of “a community built on kinship, friendship, prayer, and promise.”

The website begins with the 1940s, when Black farming families, many of whom were World War II veterans and their relatives, moved to single-family lots, creating a tightly knit community. Then the Merrick-Moore School opened,

A Mount Zoar Baptist Church baptism in the Neuse River, 1938 PHOTO COURTESY DURHAM COUNTY LIBRARY’S NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION

marking the first time the name was used.

Residents refer to life from 1950 to 1970 as the “golden years,” according to the site created by the city. With a school and a neighborhood of families, raising children was a village effort.

Next came Mount Zoar Baptist Church. The Mechanics and Farmers Bank, an offshoot of NC Mutual, issued a loan to cover the land purchase and construction costs of the church. Residents later held a mortgage-burning ceremony in 1960 after it was paid off.

Residents took pride in the school’s athletic accomplishments but also the school’s newspaper, the Merrick-Moore Jet, which regularly won national competitions, and its spelling bee team, which celebrated many wins against Little River High School.

Integration was difficult for the neighborhood, according to the city site. Students were bused to a different, formerly all-white school, and Merrick-Moore was converted to elementary grades, which meant residents lost the championship-winning high school that had educated many first-generation college graduates.

The Merrick-Moore neighborhood’s rural character began to change in 1984, when it was annexed to be part of the city. This brought “higher taxes and greater development potential,” according to the city site. It also brought improvements like water and sewer connections, streetlamps, and paved roads. The Merrick-Moore Community Club, a group of men who repaired homes and did yard work for those who couldn’t afford it, led the charge to get the neighborhood incorporated into city limits.

The Merrick-Moore Community Club merged with the Merrick Moore’s Ladies Club in 1997 to create the MMCDC, which still works to preserve the neighborhood.

Bonita Green, president of the MMCDC, worked with the city to collect the historic information for the Heritage Community project. Green says the desire to have recognition from Durham is to preserve the neighborhood’s history.

Members of the Merrick-Moore community and its Community Development Corporation PHOTO COURTESY MERRICK-MOORE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

“I didn’t want this community to be a forgotten community, or the people who started this community or lived to thrive here to be forgotten people,” Green says.

Green was born in Merrick-Moore, and her family was one of the first to settle it. She returned to the neighborhood in 2012, and she helped the MMCDC reorganize in 2018 and become a nonprofit in 2023. The MMCDC has done extensive work to preserve its own community history.

That’s what made Merrick-Moore a good first choice for the city’s Heritage Communities program.

Karla Rosenberg, senior planner in Durham’s Planning and Development Department, along with her staff, spent six months collecting history and artifacts from community members this year. She says the process was easier because the MMCDC had already collected some oral histories and artifacts.

Rosenberg says the Heritage Communities project was created as a response to “accelerated growth and pace of development” in Durham County. There is a desire to raise awareness about existing communities that development may affect, she says.

The recognition can also be a stepping stone for a designation, which carries regulations, Rosenberg says.

“This can be sort of a launching pad, because of all the research that staff and the community conduct together, it creates just a foundation of research that makes a more formal designation that much easier,” Rosenberg says.

National Register designations are voluntary and carry a tax credit process, Rosenberg says, which could make the community more enticing for outside individuals to build in. But it also has requirements for the property’s age, significance, and integrity, meaning it has to be at least 50 years old and look similar to how it did and historically important events or people must be associated with the property, according to the National Park Service.

The City of Durham also provides local historic designations, which require zoning changes or designation decla-

rations from the city or county and usually review from the Historic Preservation Commission.

Algin Holloway, whom Green refers to as the “resident historian,” is also a member of one of Merrick-Moore’s founding families. Holloway says the sign is “a great thing.”

“It lets people know the strides that people have made,” Holloway says.

Mount Zoar Baptist Church pastor Bernice Allen says the recognition is powerful because it will help the community have more leverage if it asks the city for assistance.

“You can put a sign up anywhere, but when someone else recognizes the work that has been done earlier, that’s the power,” Allen says. “That means the work didn’t go unnoticed. And so for work to have not been unnoticed, and for our children and children’s children to recognize what had been done and what we expect them to do, that means a lot.”

Community traditions continue today. Each October, residents gather to celebrate Mount Zoar’s founding, dressing in traditional clothing like bonnets and fundraising for the coming year. The church celebrated its 160th homecoming this year.

The city’s recognition also helps keep gentrification from wiping the neighborhood out, Green says. Her mission has been to establish the legacy of the community and its contributions to Durham. The historical sign is another step toward preserving Merrick-Moore.

“It’s a feeling of accomplishment because the initial goal of preserving the legacy of the community, it’s coming to fruition,” Green says.

Watts Welch, who has spent about 40 years of her life over time in Durham, says it’s wonderful for the community to receive recognition after years of work from community members.

“It’s nice that it was named for my great-grandparents, but that community was self-sustaining, and it wasn’t because of them that they have thrived,” Watts Welch says. “It was because of the members of that community.” 2 November 26, 2025 INDYweek.com 9

NEWS

Apex A historic marker commemorates the now-closed Friendship School near the current Apex Friendship High School site.

PHOTO BY MATT RAMEY

Parking Problems A fight over a for-profit parking operation near Apex Friendship High School could drag out into a legal battle between the town and a local property owner.

BY JANE PORTER jporter@indyweek.com

F

ollowing a debate over a longstanding dispute at the Apex Town Council meeting earlier this month, town leaders still haven’t found a good solution to what they’ve considered to be a significant problem in recent years: an Apex resident operating a for-profit parking lot in a residential area near Apex Friendship High School.

Outgoing town council member Brett Gantt proposed a way for the council to try and move on from the issue before a new council is seated next year, but his colleagues voted against his idea.

The council is back where it started, with the issue likely dragging into 2026 beyond.

Since 2015, Annie Scott has offered her property, a residential area on Humie Olive Road located across the street from the high school, to students who need parking spaces.

Scott charges $300 for the school year for a parking space, $100 more than the cost to park in the limited spaces on the high school’s campus; her yard can accommodate more than 50 cars.

10 INDYweek.com November 26, 2025

The Town of Apex has taken various measures over the years to try to get Scott to stop using her yard for student parking, including sending letters asking her to stop and notices of the town’s intention to rezone the property from residential to commercial use, a move requiring an amendment to the town’s UDO which could come with its own set of regulatory problems. The property falls within Apex’s extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ).

Members of the current town council have raised concerns about the safety of students crossing the street from Scott’s property to the high school, as well as issues within the parking lot itself, including aesthetics and cars getting blocked in, that the town says it can’t address without a rezoning.

But Scott, who has been clear that she doesn’t want the rezoning to happen, has persisted.

Scott appeared at the council meeting with an attorney, Truth McDavid, whom she has not officially retained, to make her case that the town can’t force her to stop leasing out parking spaces to students or fine her for doing so.

Scott, McDavid explained, paid $200 to the North Carolina Department of Transportation (DOT) to designate her private property as a public vehicular area (PVA) that the DOT can regulate with official signage and other measures. There’s no explanation on the books for why the PVA statute exists, and only one relevant case to look to for precedent, McDavid said.

That case, in McDavid’s opinion, says the PVA designation—though there is no written explanation from lawmakers for its original purpose—effectively prohibits the town from taking enforcement action against Scott.

“You guys can zone whatever you want to, but once someone petitions the state … there’s no way to undo that,” McDavid said. “[In the precedent case] dealing with the idea that once we start talking about undoing what the state wants to do, it can’t be undone by the municipality.

[State lawmakers had] reasons for doing it, but nobody decided to write any of that down with the statute.”

Back in August, Apex mayor Jacques Gilbert, at odds with some of his colleagues, declared the dispute over, and Scott free to continue operating her for-profit parking lot since she had successfully secured the PVA designation. But other council members, as well as the town attorney, disagree that the PVA designation preempts local zoning rules, citing information from NC DOT and the League of Municipalities. “…The clear intention there of the PVA designation is to allow enforcement of motor vehicle laws on the PVA property,” town attorney Laurie Hohe said at Thursday’s meeting, noting that no one was trying to reverse or invalidate DOT’s PVA designation. “…However, the question is whether that designation would preempt our zoning authority, and my opinion and others’ is that it does not. The state legislature has clearly given matters of land use control to local governments, meaning counties and cities.”

Gantt’s proposed solution was to punt the issue to county leaders. By removing the property’s ETJ status, he said, the property would come under the jurisdiction of Wake County. Gantt argued that the high school, a county facili-

Outside the Town Hall in Apex. PHOTO BY MATT RAMEY

ty, has the authority to issue parking passes to students and said it is looking at both short and long-term ways to provide more parking spaces for students, including at a planned county library nearby, and several other options.

“My preference would be the county and their ordinances—which my understanding is they also prohibit this kind of parking— the county could have that fight, if they want to, with the property owner, with some kind of enforcement on their end,” Gantt said, acknowledging that for either Apex or Wake, the fight would be “costly” and “not a great look.”

Other town council members disagreed.

“This is our situation to deal with,” said council member Terry Mahaffey. “Kicking it over to our friends in the county just so they can deal with it doesn’t really seem like a responsible thing to do. We took an oath to enforce the laws of Apex. We should be the ones to do it, take the heat for it.”

Gantt made a motion to proceed with relinquishing the ETJ, but it was voted down. So Gantt made a second motion to “direct staff to enforce the town ordinances in this case, however, the town manager and planning director see fit.”

There was no timeline, nor further specifics, and it’s not clear how that enforcement will differ from the actions the town has already taken.

“Take into account the history here, and the letters and notifications already duly sent previously,” town council member Arno Zegerman warned before the council gave its unanimous approval to the second motion.

The town could also move forward with amending the town’s UDO to rezone the property from residential to commercial, as it has already threatened, and let the legal process play out as it may. Each side seems convinced of its own chances of prevailing.

In his public comments before the official discussion, McDavid, the lawyer speaking for Scott, was confident that she has the state statute on her side. McDavid asked the town council for “mercy and grace.”

“Mercy in the sense that we could spend a lot of money arguing about this, and Ms. Scott could probably hire me to represent her, but I don’t know who that would serve,” McDavid said after summarizing his case that the PVA designation overrides the town’s enforcement authority.

“I hope that this helps you. Helps kids have a safe place to park. It’s in the best interest of the children, and everyone, and it would save a lot of money.”

The council members took a different view.

“From what I’m hearing from the town attorney is that whether we enforce our zoning, or the county enforces their zoning, it’s unlikely the land owner will prevail,” Gantt said during the discussion, “if it comes to a judge deciding.”

It was Gantt’s last meeting before leaving the council, after he declined to run for reelection to his seat this fall.

“I am loathe to let an issue like this fester into the next council, considering it happened on our watch,” Gantt said at the beginning of the discussion.

But after the council voted to stay the course, it looks like that’s exactly what will happen. W November 26, 2025 INDYweek.com 11

NEWS

Durham ILLUSTRATION BY NICOLE PAJOR MOORE

Meal Planning Durham County is embarking on a 10-year plan to address food insecurity that includes a spatial analysis of food access.

BY KENNEDY THOMASON backtalk@indyweek.com

D

urham County is preparing to assess its food system and create a 10-year plan to ensure food security.

Durham’s Board of County Commissioners approved a $159,547 contract earlier this month with Key Environmental Consulting, which will develop a food system assessment and strategic plan over 18 months. The goals for the strategic plan include ensuring access to affordable, safe, and nutritious food that meets dietary needs and food preferences; assessing the conditions and job opportunities for people working in Durham’s food industries; and using environmentally-friendly practices to protect waterways and wildlife.

Durham is slightly below the food insecurity average of 15 percent in North Carolina, with 13.8 percent of residents having limited or uncertain access to adequate food, according to 2023 data from Feeding America. However, food insecurity rates are much higher for children, as well as Black people and Latinos, in comparison with Durham’s average (18.3 percent for children, 26 percent for Black 12 INDYweek.com November 26, 2025

people, and 22 percent for Latinos).

“The Durham County government and our community members do so much for food security,” says Raina Bunnag, NC Cooperative Extension food security coordinator.

“There’s always tons of efforts going on, but we never have enough resources or enough staff or enough volunteers.

So, this will help us to understand really how to prioritize projects and how to better use the resources, both, again, internally and throughout the county, to make bigger change together.”

Key Environmental Consulting, which has experience working in Durham, will conduct a spatial analysis of food access that will detail the grocery stores and markets in Durham, farms and other food production sites in and near the county, and how food is distributed in Durham.

The vendor will also review policies at the local, state, and national levels to determine the best strategies to deal with food insecurity. The findings will be used to evaluate Durham’s current efforts.

The first six months of the project, which is expected to begin early next year, will be dedicated to meeting with Key Environmental Consulting as it creates a project plan.

A steering committee will also be formed to help lead the assessment activities.

Starting around the third month, data collection and spatial analysis will begin. The last six months will be dedicated to developing the 10-year strategic plan, getting community feedback, revising the plan based on feedback, and publishing it.

Bunnag says the county has ramped up its already “significant food security investment” in recent years. The county has invested more than $3 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) food security projects, as a result of federal stimulus money during the pandemic.

Emergency planning will be another focus of the strategic plan.

The federal government shutdown, which disrupted Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for 32,529 people in Durham, reinforced the need to have emergency planning, Bunnag says.

“I think it’s great timing for a lot of reasons, but that is one part that I will be glad for us to have some data and recommendations around,” Bunnag says.

Donna Rewalt, director of Durham County Center of NC Cooperative Extension said during the November 10 county commissioners’ meeting that food insecurity ebbs and flows, like it did with the 2008 recession and pandemic.

“We are used to a mill of different crises happening, and so there’s never a right time to do something, but now is a good time for us to really be looking more deeply at this work so it can help us to be more prepared in the future,” Rewalt said. 2

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November 26, 2025 INDYweek.com 13

MUSIC The current lineup of Katharine Whalen’s Jazz Squad PHOTO BY DAVID PRATHER

Swing State Efland musician Katharine Whalen flexes her trademark verve and versatility on two new records.

BY JOE VANDERFORD music@indyweek.com

“S

tylistically, I keep the music going in a lot of different directions,” says Katharine Whalen, former singer and banjo-picker of the celebrated Squirrel Nut Zippers.

Well, that’s an understatement. Within diligent, hardworking bands like Whalen’s Jazz Squad and Certain Seas, the musician has been stretching her stylistic wings and flying off toward myriad destinations since the early nineties. Her itinerary stays busy—and her music, as always, unpredictable.

As cofounder of Squirrel Nut Zippers in 1993, Whalen teamed up with then-husband Jimbo Mathus to form a commercial juggernaut of quirky swing and impish humor.

The band’s résumé includes a platinum album (Hot), a hit single (“Hell”), appearances on the late-night network talk shows, and a performance slot at the 1998 Clinton inauguration. Hot indeed.

Following temporary sabbaticals and fluctuating lineups, the group still exists under Mathus’s leadership today.

14 INDYweek.com November 26, 2025

Meanwhile, Whalen is charting a course that leads somewhere else.

Arriving this fall on the Modern Harmonic label, a pair of new records featuring Whalen demonstrates her verve and versatility. Waxed before an immersed audience in Hillsborough in March, Down Yonder is Jazz Squad’s fourth release and a sunny celebration of Tin Pan Alley–inspired Americana. Meanwhile, Ordinary Hopes by Certain Seas charts that combo’s unique blend of edgy folk-meets-rock tunes composed by Whalen, guitarist Austin Riopel, and trombonist Danny Grewen. Somehow, the divergent music of two distinct bands springs from the same trio: Whalen, Riopel, and Grewen.

“Definitely, my voice is different in the two bands,” Whalen explains on the phone from her home in Efland. “In Jazz Squad, I’m trying to serve the song. I’m choosing material that I find intriguing and challenging. When I sing in Certain Seas, I’m serving the musicians in the group. I’m telling a story that’s based on something we wrote. The

songs are not always beautiful and melodic. They can be harsh—or just weird.”

If the “sparkle folk” (Whalen’s term) of Certain Seas is quirky and contemporary, the revivalist set list of Jazz Squad proves that the bread-and-butter repertoire of American popular song is alive and well. The early compositions of Cole Porter, Hoagy Carmichael, and Duke Ellington grew from seeds planted during the Depression of nearly a century ago. As Whalen understands, old-fashioned artistry still bristles with relevance today, when harsh political winds blow hard.

“Older music needs to be kept alive and presented in a way that is true to the way the music was performed when it first appeared,” she elaborates. “Songs are living things.

I often think of the original songwriter, who was probably tinkling a piano. What did the song sound like back then?

What was the intent?”

“I revere older things,” Whalen continues. “My grandmother was in theater up in Hendersonville, and she was

often involved in performing classic material like [Thomas Wolfe’s] Look Homeward, Angel. We didn’t have television. We didn’t have radio. We had a record player. We had a piano. My grandmother would play things like Chopin’s nocturnes. I’ve always felt connected to older times.”

Although Whalen wistfully confesses that she seldom feels like a “modern singer,” a recent gig by Certain Seas at Berkeley Cafe in Raleigh animated the room like something fresh out of alt-rock. While dancers spun and drinkers at the bar nodded approval, Grewen’s brass-playing—the band’s signature braaam—moaned sweet and low. On trombone and baritone horn, he blew fat bass lines or whispered in counterpoint to Whalen’s and Riopel’s intertwined vocals. Whatever the music called for, Grewen provided.

“Instantly, when I met him,” confirms Whalen, “Danny and I just clicked. We started our duo thing, Swedish Wood Control, with tenor guitar and trombone, and me singing. He naturally filled up the space that would have been occupied by bass or drums or another voice. What Danny plays just suits me.”

W

ith the tape machine rolling at the Yonder nightclub back in March, Jazz Squad regrouped to record a live record.

Grewen and Riopel were joined by rollicking pianist Griffanzo (Robert Griffin) while downstage to the right, a percussionist dressed in bright colors struck a cool pose behind a zany set of drums.

Of course, you’ve guessed that Whalen’s the drummer, and her little cartoon kit is unlike any other.

“The drums make Jazz Squad a little scarier and spicier for me,” she explains. “I have some bongos. And I have a medium-sized cymbal and a small splash cymbal. And I play with these fantastic sticks. The handle is wooden, like a real drumstick. And

the top is not exactly like a wire brush but the size of big spaghetti and made of plastic. They’re just fantastic. They can sound bright or sort of dusky on bongos. Pretty beatnik, huh?” she laughs.

“I started playing drums while I was singing just two or three years ago, just to make the band sound fuller. I’m not in charge of anything instrumentally. I have no training. I can provide garnishes. I just do what I think sounds good. And feels good. And grooves.”

Outside of hall-of-famers Karen Carpenter and Ringo Starr, there are few singing drummers because it’s damn difficult to do both simultaneously. Imagine rubbing your tummy and patting your noggin at hyperspeed. But Whalen pulls it off by simplifying her strokes while singing and pushing the band with emphatic swing when her bandmates take the spotlight.

Over time, KW’s Jazz Squad has become a legitimate jazz band with a thick book of vintage tunes and, now, a new member. Bassist Kenny Phelps-McKeown has replaced pianist Griffanzo, who recently relocated to France.

The fresh alignment of stand-up bass, guitar, trombone, and drums is almost unprecedented. The arrival of Phelps-McKeown will liberate Grewen and Riopel to fly high and mighty while the bassist dutifully defines the music’s bottom end.

And what will the drummer do? No doubt, she’ll continue to do what she does best: swing and sing.

As she discusses what she has learned from iconic vocalists of the past like Billie Holiday, Annie Ross, and Chet Baker, Whalen admits her affinity to sing jazz seemingly happened by accident. “I don’t know how this came about, really,” she muses.

“From the get-go, I could just do it. It was very surprising. But I’m also grateful that, as I age, I have more to offer. My range has expanded. I have so much more life experience. It’s an honor to be able to sing jazz.” 2

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November 26, 2025 INDYweek.com 15

PHOTOS

Community Defense As Border Patrol agents fanned out across the Triangle last week, so did community members—in protest of the deportation sweeps and in defense of each other.

by Sarah Willets swillets@indyweek.com

L

ast week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents descended on the Triangle, detaining at least a dozen people in Raleigh, Cary, and Durham. Their presence came amid “Operation Charlotte’s Web” in Charlotte, the latest stop on the Trump administration’s campaign to ramp up deportations and target blue cities.

On Monday, the week began with rumors that CBP would come to Raleigh. By Tuesday morning, masked and camo-clad agents had fanned out across the Triangle—Durham, Raleigh, Cary, Apex, Garner—largely hitting grocery stores, home improvement shops, and shopping centers with Latino businesses.

At the same time, thousands of volunteers mobilized to defend immigrant communities.

They tracked down reports of vehicles resembling ones used by federal agencies in order to verify whether they carried CBP agents. They recorded agents attempting to detain people in parking lots and on sidewalks, demanding to see badge numbers and warrants. They spread out among businesses, some which had closed out of fear, to warn them that “la migra está aquí.” They formed protective and comforting crowds around local schools, where attendance dropped by as much as 30 percent as scared families kept their kids home. They gave people rides and distributed food to neighbors afraid to leave their homes.

And they made their voices heard.

Hundreds hit the streets in Raleigh and in Durham, to show that—as one Raleigh protester put it—“we won’t let ICE and Border Patrol come here without massive protests.” Students walked out en masse from Hillside High School, East Chapel Hill High School, Rolesville High School, and others.

By the end of the week, CBP had moved on to other towns, leaving Triangle residents on edge and already planning for the next time this happens, which feels, for many people, inevitable. 2

16 INDYweek.com November 26, 2025

Clockwise from top: Alongside local officials and activists, clergy members hold a sign reading “We Are with You” at a November 18 press conference responding to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) activity in Durham.

PHOTO BY CORNELL WATSON. Siembra NC founder Andrew Willis Garcés and volunteer Mauricio Borgen. PHOTO BY JUSTIN LAIDLAW. About 500 protesters gathered in Raleigh on November 18 to protest CBP. PHOTO BY CHLOE COURTNEY BOHL. Nida Allam, chair of the Durham County Board of Commissioners, who witnessed three people detained by CBP, speaks at the November 18 press conference. PHOTO BY JUSTIN LAIDLAW.

PHOTOS

Clockwise from top: Employees at La Superior grocery store closed down the grocery store and pulled the gates shut after learning CBP was in the area. PHOTO BY LENA GELLER. Volunteers in Durham warned local businesses of CBP presence, creating signs that said “Immigration is Here”. PHOTO BY CORNELL WATSON. Volunteers with Siembra NC gathered at Durham schools to protect and reassure students. PHOTO BY CORNELL WATSON. Kaleb Graves, a Siembra NC volunteer, held a whistle to alert people nearby by if CBP was present along with a crucifix while patrolling in front of International Foods in Raleigh. PHOTO BY CORNELL WATSON. Volunteers with Siembra NC patrolled in front of International Foods in Raleigh. PHOTO BY CORNELL WATSON. Volunteers with Siembra NC patrolled in front of International Foods. PHOTO BY CORNELL WATSON. Three people were detained on November 18 outside Beauty World in East Durham. PHOTO BY LENA GELLER. November 26, 2025 INDYweek.com 17

ART Images from the 2025 North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival PHOTOS BY LIZ CONDO

from across North Carolina. In 2015, it attracted a mere 50,000 people. In 2024, about 250,000 visitors made the pilgrimage, some driving from hours away. This year, the friends I first evangelized to about the festival are already on their second or third visit. Planning a family trip during the holidays is an exercise in perfect timing. Everyone I know is flocking to the festival.

The event began as a way for Cary officials to make money during Koka Booth Amphitheatre’s off-season. The outdoor venue had to shutter during winter months; a light display was the perfect way to keep it up and running while also creating some holiday cheer for locals.

Around the same time, a company responsible for overwhelmingly popular lantern festivals overseas—Tianyu Arts and Culture—opened a headquarters in Chicago. Cary became one of the first towns in the country to host a Tianyu festival, with its elaborate, larger-than-life lanterns in the shape of flowers, mythical beasts, and animals from the Chinese zodiac.

Koka Booth’s unusual characteristics meant it was suited for this kind of event, says William Lewis, Cary’s cultural arts manager. “[Tianyu officials] liked the landscape a lot, the fact that we have wooded areas,” he says. “You have a viewpoint where you can see long distances, but then you can tuck back in and have intimate moments.”

Light Years A decade into a tradition, the North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival continues to up the ante and keep visitors in awe.

BY JASMINE GALLUP arts@indyweek.com

T

he day before the North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival opened, on November 13, operations manager Andrew Bowman was testing the lights.

For two weeks, Bowman had worked 12-to-14-hour days: unloading trucks, running power lines, overseeing crane operations. He, along with his staff, site manager Feng Lu, and a crew of 51 artists, electricians, and builders from China, was tasked with transforming a pine forest into a lantern-filled wonderland.

Now, with about 30 hours to go until the Koka Booth Amphitheatre gates opened, Bowman was adding the finishing touches, like setting up hot cocoa stands and refilling paper towel dispensers.

“In the first weeks, we’re doing macro items, like we’re physically lifting a 14-ton butterfly,” Bowman says. “But in the days right before the festival opens … we are truly trying to make sure it is show-ready. I need to make sure that every coffeepot has power and every percolator has water in it.”

18 INDYweek.com November 26, 2025

The last task Bowman had was ensuring the towering evergreen in the middle of the lawn would light up on cue.

The crew took their positions, ready to flip switches in sync at the end of a countdown. After a few practice runs, they managed to get the lights to come on nearly simultaneously—a preview of the big moment on November 14, when the beacon lit up to announce Cary’s 10th annual Chinese Lantern Festival.

A growing phenomenon A decade ago, I was raving about this festival to friends who had never heard of it. The first time I stepped through the gates into a fantastical, neon-bright forest full of mythical creatures, it was like I was walking into another, more magical world. Even now, after ten years of visits, I still experience moments of awe.

In the years since, the festival has enchanted visitors

Artistry and engineering Planning for the festival is nearly a year-round endeavor, says Lewis. A month or two after the lights turn off, he and Cary staff are already talking about what improvements can be made, what new features could be put in next year.

“How do you continue to keep people in awe? That’s the challenge,” Lewis says. “You raise the bar and raise the bar and raise the bar.”

It requires a lot of creativity to keep the festival fresh, he adds, but the extraordinary detail of each lantern makes the task easier. A few years ago, the festival also transitioned to LED lighting, which consumes less power and enabled the installation of even more lanterns.

“The venue wasn’t built for this type of an event, so we don’t have power in all the places we’d love it,” Lewis says.

“But now with the LED and the low draw, it helps us be able to provide power in different places. You’ll notice it’s brighter out there, and there’s just more lanterns.”

The lanterns themselves are made in Zigong, China, home to Tianyu’s manufacturing facilities. The building process starts with people drawing life-sized outlines of each lantern, according to the company. Metalworkers then twist and weld together steel frames to match the outline and create the lantern’s base.

Next, electric lights are installed, a combination of bulbs and LEDs. Another team drapes and glues fabric, mostly silk, onto each lantern’s frame. Painters then fill in colorful details with an airbrush or by hand.

After the majority of the work is done, disassembled lanterns are shipped to North Carolina by boat, a voyage that takes more than a month. Then, a convoy of semis drives the lanterns to Koka Booth, where the Tianyu crew reassembles and installs each lantern, with the help of the amphitheater’s operations staff.

Twenty thousand lights In 2025, Feng Lu is the Tianyu liaison who oversees the Chinese crew. Like Bowman, Lu spends the majority of her time on-site at Koka Booth, managing every minor detail and troubleshooting.

In the five-minute walk from the gates to the pavilion, Lu is pulled aside once to talk about a problem with the central display, then fields two more service calls by phone before sitting down.

“This is a business trip for me,” she says with a smile. “I’ll be in the United States about half a year, every year.”

In the lead-up to the festival, Lu oversaw the installation of some 20,000 lights and 100,000 feet of electrical wiring, she says.

In total, about 450,000 pounds of metal were used for the lantern displays. That’s not to mention all the moving and interactive lanterns, which require more complicated mechanical and electrical engineering.

This year, about 30 groups of lanterns use mechanical movements, according to Lu. Even with the LEDs, the festival has grown so large that the amphitheater’s power capacity is being tested. As Bowman says, “If there’s a spare outlet in a closet, chances are my team will be running a power cord to it.”

Large displays like the evergreen tree, or the two-story, 164-foot-long golden snake stretching across Symphony Lake, are installed using cranes and other construction equipment.

“It’s kind of a waltz of managing all the different components, with lots of stepping on toes due to the speed of it all,” Bowman says. Occasionally, crew members are even temporarily penned in by displays that have been built up around them … all while they were working on something else.

In addition to managing setup, Lu and a few crew members work throughout the festival to oversee any maintenance the lanterns may need. If it’s rainy or windy, fabric could be torn down, she says, or the electric system might get disrupted.

The number of people involved, the amount of physical work required, and the level of cooperation needed to hold the festival are genuinely stunning. And unlike most, the staff don’t get snow days.

In fact, that’s usually when crew members are tromping around outside to fix lanterns.

A family tradition This year’s centerpiece, the evergreen tree, towers over mushrooms, colorful flowers, and elf-like beings. But for every oversized, eye-catching spectacle, there’s a tiny, charming detail that brings me a thrill of joy whenever I spot it, like the luna moths on either side of a cascading waterfall or the blue-green mountains that make up the ridges on the back of a giant whale.

Determined solo visitors might be able to speed-walk through the festival in little more than an hour, but they’d miss out on some of the most remarkable moments.

As Lewis says, “There’s something around every corner.” In one hidden alcove, you can take a photo underneath a bamboo arch, complete with pandas. And you don’t want to miss reading about the zodiac animal for your birth year.

On a busy night, exploring Koka Booth’s 14-acre grounds in the crush of the crowd requires at least two hours. If you have kids, expect to spend a good chunk of time at the interactive playground, which includes swings, seesaws, and a light-up stepping pad. Still, there’s no doubt that the ticket price, lines, and tricky parking situation are all worth it.

Personally, Lewis’s favorite moment is “when you enter the front gate,” he says.

“It’s a tunnel of thousands of lanterns, and it just sets the mood for, like, you’re going to experience something very different.”

This type of festival is definitely new to North Carolina, but it mirrors a much larger festival in Zigong that’s been running in one form or another for more than 1,000 years.

Also known as the Spring Festival or Yuanxiao Festival, it marks the end of festivities for the Chinese New Year, which typically falls in late January or early February.

Lu and her family used to visit the Zigong festival each year, she says, the same way people here visit the Cary festival annually.

For Tianyu manager Zhang Miao, the Spring Festival means eating dumplings and seeing his parents, grandmother, and great-grandmother, he says.

As unfamiliar as it is, Cary’s Chinese Lantern Festival has come to mean something similar for many in North Carolina—an opportunity to spend time with family and enjoy the holidays. W November 26, 2025 INDYweek.com 19

FOOD & DRINK Volunteers at Emanuel Food Pantry load boxes with produce and food to be handed out during a food distribution.

PHOTO BY CORNELL WATSON

Power to the Food Pantry There is a mounting hunger crisis across the country. In Durham, as need grows, so does Emanuel Food Pantry.

BY ANDREA RICHARDS food@indyweek.com

C

orn chowder. Cucumber salad. Mashed potatoes. As we sort through a large cardboard box of fresh produce, the woman beside me details all the ways she plans to transform these groceries into meals.

“I make a chicken soup, too,” she says, adding to the list, “and my grandson says, ‘It’s so good!’”

This woman, who shares her recipes but not her name, has eight grandchildren and not enough food, which is why she takes the bus every Wednesday to Durham’s Emanuel Food Pantry (EFP), a nonprofit that runs a weekly mobile food distribution service from the parking lot of Iglesia Presbiteriana Emanuel on Roxboro Street.

“If this wasn’t here, I would have to go home and find something to sell, go to the pawn shop to get food,” she says. When I ask if the 16-ounce container of milk she received is enough for both the chowder and the potatoes, she says, “I make it work.”

This sentiment, like the woman’s careful process of food inventory and transport, is a microcosm of the activities all around us in the busy parking lot. Today, in the span 20 INDYweek.com November 26, 2025

of just two hours, more than 650 cars will cycle through, moving through a team of volunteers who direct traffic, scan tickets, pop trunks, and load in produce boxes and large bags of shelf-stable pantry items. (If there are kids in the car, volunteers offer one of a limited number of desserts.) When supplies run low, volunteers driving pallet lifters bring more boxes and bags. The efficiency of motion feels factory-esque, but the atmosphere is warm and fun—music plays and greetings are exchanged in English and Spanish.

Along with the drive-in service, another 100 or so clients pick up their food from the pantry’s walk-up line, which, like the car service, requires nothing more than signing up online for a spot. There are also delivery options for homebound clients and a special pickup time for church members. Joy Newburn, EFP’s part-time operations manager, is handing out flyers with instructions for how to sign up for next week’s service—that is, when she’s not directing traffic, managing volunteers in fluorescent vests, or doing a hundred million other things.

Newburn is one of only two EFP employees, both of whom started just this year—even though the pantry is going on its sixth year of service. In five years, the initiative has grown from a handful of folks serving 30 families a weekly hot meal in the church basement, to this—Durham County’s largest emergency food assistance program, with more than 150 volunteers a week that serve 860 families.

Newburn says that when she came on board, the pantry’s distribution setup was already a well-oiled machine, but she still felt like she was “drinking from a fire hose.”

Today, her buoyancy is evident and contagious. Or maybe the cheerful optimism and make-it-work determinism I see all around is just the ethos necessary to make an all-volunteer effort work so well and for so long.

Back at the walk-up table, Bruce, a disabled veteran who rides over in his scooter from a nearby group home, is cracking jokes with two longtime volunteers and picking up his goods. “I get ’em talking,” he says of the volunteers. He tells me he makes too much to qualify for the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) but not enough to cover his grocery bill. “A lot of veterans don’t get enough,” he says, which is why he drives his “Rolly Royce” here every week.

Of course, even if Bruce did qualify for SNAP, it wouldn’t necessarily make a difference. October’s government shutdown put an abrupt stop to SNAP benefit distribution, which put the 1.4 million low-income North Carolina residents who rely on the program to feed their families at an even greater risk. Those delayed benefits are now slowly beginning to return, but for many recipients, SNAP wasn’t enough in the first place to keep healthy food on the table through the end of the month. Plus, SNAP faces permanent cuts as Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act becomes law; enacting its provisions will push millions of Americans off the nation’s largest antihunger program. If folks were still hungry with SNAP benefits, the pains of the shutdown’s temporary suspension is only a preview of a much worse disaster to come.

Above: volunteers at Emanuel Food Pantry load boxes with produce and food to be handed out during a food distribution. Right: cars line up to receive food. PHOTOS BY CORNELL WATSON

T

hough the steady stream of cars stretches around the block and backs up into the neighborhood, where volunteers are positioned to help traffic flow as smoothly as possible, few neighbors complain about the congestion. Maybe because seeing all the vehicles lined up makes it apparent how widespread food insecurity is and gives close proximity to a problem that, for how big it is, remains mostly unseen.

Food insecurity is largely invisible—you can’t always see hunger, but you certainly can see its effects in chronic diseases, poor health, and children who are struggling in school due to developmental differences.

Historically, North Carolina has had one of the highest rates of food insecurity in the United States, and according to 2023 data from Feeding America, in Durham County 13.8 percent of residents cannot access enough food.

“Once you know that almost 50,000 people are food insecure in this community that has so much brain power and so much wealth, you cannot turn a blind eye—it’s almost inconceivable that this was such a hidden issue for so long,” says Miguel Rubiera, who, along with his wife Margaret, founded the Emanual Food Pantry in 2020.

After careers running other nonprofits (including Durham’s Habitat for Humanity), the Rubieras’ “retirement” has been spent building both the food pantry and a related tutoring program, which is also held on church grounds. Knowing the Rubieras’ skills as passionate advocates and leaders, Pastor Julio Ramírez-Eve initially asked for their help in turning the church’s Wednesday night din-

ners into a mobile food pantry during the pandemic. Seeing the growing need during lockdown, the couple worked to source food, raise funds, and recruit help—growing the organization organically and welcoming volunteers and their input every step of the way.

“We did not sit down in the spring of 2020 and say ‘OK, we’re going to get this food pantry going and this is our strategic plan,’” says Margaret Rubiera in a Zoom interview. “It was all just responding to the needs of the moment and continuing con-

seem that the operation is pulling at the modest building’s seams.

The organization’s biggest expansion is the appointment of a new executive director, Pam Ryan, who has been on the job for only a few weeks. With an extensive background in the antihunger field, she’s excited to be leading such a vital organization. “The volunteers are rivaled by none—they clamor for those volunteer spots!” she says.

Ryan’s arrival will allow the Rubieras to step back from day-to-day operations, but

“Once you know that almost 50,000 people are food insecure in this community that has so much brain power and so much wealth, you cannot turn a blind eye.” stantly just to respond …. It’s only been recently that we’ve been able to sit down and really strategize for the future.”

That future includes an advisory board, which transitioned into a board of trustees in 2023, the year the pantry became its own nonprofit organization, separate from the church that houses it. As the pantry has grown, its real estate needs have expanded as well—growth that the church has been able to accommodate so far, though it does

they are hardly abandoning the cause— instead, the couple plans to move into a larger advocacy role, working with 15 other area food pantries as a coalition with the hopes of changing perceptions around antihunger work. “Everybody who has been born is entitled to food and shelter—that’s social justice, not charity,” says Miguel.

He is especially excited to develop private-public partnerships to help alleviate food insecurity.

“We have so many businesses in our community talking about food as health, food as ceremony, but they don’t do baloney …. They talk a lot. They have conferences, they write articles, but they don’t do anything about it,” Miguel says. “With the coalition of pantries, we are going to go to people and say, ‘OK, put the money where your mouth is.’”

D

uring this moment of transition and growth for the Emanual Food Pantry, all signs nationally and locally show that the need for food assistance programs is only going to continue to increase—and the government shutdown SNAP debacle is just one of the many reasons pantries like EFP are under pressure. People didn’t have enough to eat before the federal cuts to food banks and SNAP benefits, so donations from private entities and individuals are essential to cover the gaps.

“The reality is none of us had any fraction of an idea that it would be this big or around for this long—it’s just been about kind of holding on for dear life to do whatever we can to meet this growing demand,” says Jacob Boehm, who serves as chair of EFP’s advisory board.

Boehm, a local chef whose company Snap Pea creates pop-up dinners around the Triangle, first started volunteering at the pantry five years ago.

“I kept hearing rumblings of this food pantry on Roxboro that was ‘no questions asked’ and had really good food—it stood out as a magical unicorn of food assistance programs,” Boehm says.

November 26, 2025 INDYweek.com 21

Volunteers load cars with food at the Emanuel Food Pantry during a weekly Wednesday free food distribution. PHOTO BY CORNELL WATSON

Emanuel Food Pantry staff stand for a portrait. Front row: Pam Ryan, Margaret Rubiera, and Joy Newburn. Back row: Miguel Rubiera and Jacob Boehm. PHOTO BY CORNELL WATSON

“No barriers, no questions asked, so anyone can come, and then a prioritization of high-quality, fresh produce,” he continues. Situations where organizations have to make do without such fresh produce, he says, make jobs “ten times harder because you have to worry about cold chain storage and spoilage.”

When I compliment the fresh produce boxes in front of us, saying they look like the sort of thing you’d get from a CSA box, he says, “You’d be lucky to get a box like that at your CSA.” Boehm’s pride in what EFP gives away is well deserved. The controlled chaos of Wednesday’s distribution is only possible because of another well-practiced process, one with even more moving parts: food donations. Along with donations from the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, Farmer Foodshare, and food recovery programs from stores such as Costco, Wegmans, and Whole Foods, EFP accepts all kinds of smaller donations as well.

Tuesdays are when the big trucks come in and the major donations are unloaded— once again, trained volunteers use pallet jacks and organize stacks of produce, pantry items, and bread in Tetris-like configurations. It’s like Christmas morning and moving day merged—stuff all around and boxes full of surprises, but once again there’s far more method than madness. Volunteers know their roles and jobs and do them to rocking music: organizing items, building and breaking down boxes, and filling up bags with rice, beans, pasta, and dry goods.

bution; it’s a way to break bread together that embodies the spirit of community. The people working here share the same food as the clients who use the service.

“One thing I have absolutely loved has been seeing how, in these two-hour volunteer shifts, people have come together and gotten to know one another, free from the artificial barriers that we normally set up,” Margaret Rubiera says, and I agree. I felt that erosion of boundaries at EFP, about how exchanging food—and recipes—creates connections, no matter where you fall economically.

By the end of the day, the wall of refrigerators I watched fill up just a day before are now bare—as are the shelves and tables where the produce boxes and pantry bags were made and stored. Ditto in the parking lot—the pallets full of food are almost gone, but the line of cars continues. There used to be leftover boxes and bags that would be shared with other nearby food pantries.

These days, there are no leftovers.

22 INDYweek.com November 26, 2025

Produce box assembly is where the real action is. First, the produce gets sorted. The recovered items that aren’t fresh enough to be included are composted or cooked for a volunteer meal. There is no food waste— farmers come pick up the compost. Then the numbers are tallied: How many ears of corn in each box? One or two cabbages?

Volunteers pick a vegetable and then hit repeat, filling box after box.

All of this happens under the watchful eye of Newburn, who keeps inventory of the donations via a program on her phone and can gauge from experience where the gaps are. If she sees something important missing—say, tomatoes—she can supplement, thanks to cash donations, and place an order with a local merchant. She has a standing order with El Camino, a Mexican food distributor just minutes away, to buy bananas. All the foods she uses to supplement donations need to be healthy, fresh, and attuned to a culturally diverse audience.

There’s a real waste-not, want-not mentality to all operations, which makes sense given that this is a group of people who know the value of a good meal and the level of scarcity around. Plus, intentionality abounds in little decisions that support the organization’s core mission. Instead of ordering pizza to feed the volunteers, who are often working through their lunch hours, the board decided to hire a member of the church to prepare meals on-site, made from recovered food that couldn’t go into the boxes.

The practice isn’t just a smart way to use food that’s too fragile or wilted for distri-

I

t’s a week later, and the circumstances are different: the arrival of federal Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents in Durham—spotted the day prior, on November 18, less than a mile from the church—has raised concerns around today’s food distribution. Many area businesses that cater to a Latinx clientele are closed.

The leadership of EFP, meanwhile, has been hard at work trying to figure out how to keep its neighborhood safe. The beautiful boxes of produce are ready, the staples bagged. Plus, members of the Triangle Asso-

ciation of Muslim American Mothers plan to distribute halal chickens at today’s pickup, as they do every year for Thanksgiving.

The threat of ICE activity in the area is a new constraint—yet EFP does what it has years of experience doing: responding to the needs of the moment. Calls are made, and processes are changed on the fly. Siembra NC, an immigration advocacy group, is on hand to help, as are more volunteers. Pastor Ramírez-Eve, who for 20 years has led the church that houses the EFP, offers a long view of what is happening today, telling me how the food pantry at its very beginnings, before it became its own entity, began in difficult times—the economic uncertainty at the end of the Bush administration.

“Right now we have another crisis affecting our community, and we try to deal with that,” Ramírez-Eve says of today’s upheaval.

“The idea is to be present for the community, to provide space and support—especially for people who have a lot of need. That’s the way, that’s the mission we have.”

Around us, service has started—cars are pulling in, and along with a produce box and a pantry bag, volunteers are loading halal chickens and eggs into trunks or, at the walk-up stand, placing them carefully into shopping carts.

“The good thing is the community is coming. People in the [surrounding] neighborhoods are coming and asking how they can be helpful,” Ramírez-Eve continues. “That’s beautiful in this particular moment. I think it’s a blessing to see how many people are coming here to be a good helper. We are in unity with the Durham community.” 2

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November 26, 2025 INDYweek.com 23

FOOD & DRINK

THE OLD NORTH BAR

316 West Geer Street, Durham | theoldnorthbar.com

The Old North Bar PHOTO BY DAVID VICTOR

Another Round The Old North Bar opened earlier this fall in the Durham space that previously housed Accordion Club, a neighborhood favorite. It’s keeping the dive spirit alive.

BY LENA GELLER lgeller@indyweek.com

W

hen Accordion Club closed, earlier this year, it left Durham bereft of one of its most essential dive bars—the kind of place where regulars knew which stool was theirs, where bathroom selfies had their own dedicated Instagram account, where a hot dog from a roller behind the bar tasted transcendent. The kind of place where you might run into two different exes on a first date, where trying to order a mojito got you a raised eyebrow.

The kind of place, in other words, that a city needs. Filling the void it left was essential. But Accordion would be a hard act to follow.

Which may be why Connor Gunipero, Josh Goodsell, and Zach Wooldridge aren’t trying to deviate too far from what came before. The three owners of The Old North Bar, which 24 INDYweek.com November 26, 2025

opened in September in the former Accordion space at 316 West Geer Street, are leaning into legacy.

“A Bull City classic—renewed, renovated and ready to be rediscovered,” Old North’s website reads, stating even more plainly down the page: “Some things never change.”

In the year before it closed, Accordion’s hours had gotten increasingly sporadic. The INDY was unable to reach owner Scott Richie to learn why he decided to shutter the space in the spring. The Old North team, however, feels confident about the new bar’s prospects.

“We’re doing a bunch of work to make this very geared towards tight margins, which we’re all very comfortable with,” Gunipero says.

The owners met each other a few years back. Good-

sell and Wooldridge bonded over card games at an estate sale—Wooldridge was hustling sports cards, Goodsell was dealing Magic: The Gathering. Goodsell and Gunipero connected when Gunipero was bartending at The Crunkleton in Chapel Hill around the same time. Goodsell was a regular who “actually ordered good whiskey,” Gunipero says.

When the opportunity to take over the Accordion space arose, Goodsell pitched the idea to the two others, who had never met. They jumped at it. The three brought complementary skills: Wooldridge, a Durham native, owns his own electrical contracting company; Gunipero spent 15 years bartending in New York City before his five-year stint at The Crunkleton; and Goodsell has been in the restaurant industry for over two decades and owns Chapel Hill bar The Gathering Place and pizzeria Alpha Pie. Their main goal was for the space to continue being a neighborhood bar that everyone can afford. They’ve kept draft beers between $5 and $8 (the cheapest option is $5 for a 20 oz PBR), cans and bottles from $3 to $6, and classic cocktails in the $9 to $12 range. On Mondays, all beer cans and bottles are $1 off.

To pull off those prices, the trio made a series of deliberate choices. First, they took no outside investors.

“We’re not beholden to anyone but ourselves,” Gunipero says.

They also leveraged industry knowledge to source quality spirits at lower costs. North Carolina’s government-controlled liquor pricing works in their favor: “If you have the palate for it, you can get a much cheaper bottle that’s a much better distillate” than what the market hype suggests you should be using, Gunipero says.

And they made decisive calls about what to spend on and what to skip. They wanted to keep hot dogs in-house like Accordion had, but when the health department said they’d need about $80,000 in renovations to maintain a food permit, they pivoted. Instead, they’ve partnered with Greg Poole from Hawk Dogs, who runs a cart outside Thursday through Sunday, 6 p.m. to midnight. Poole’s menu rotates— sometimes there are burgers and fries—and his wife occasionally shows up with slices of homemade sweet potato pie ($3.50) and vegetables from their garden (free).

On the design side, the owners kept the bones but gave things a refresh. They re-sanded and refinished the bar, stripping off “a nice thick layer of grime.” They added booth seating inside, where a pool table and pinball machine once stood, and expanded seating out back, as well— though Accordion’s trademark Chinese lanterns did come down in the process. After some debate, they repainted the graffiti-covered bathroom walls (people are welcome to re-graffiti them, the owners say). And they added new shelves behind the bar, made from red oak by a fatherand-son duo they found on Facebook Marketplace, who

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An assortment of drinks at The Old North Bar. PHOTO BY DAVID VICTOR

Wooldridge says “just kind of had a mill at their house.”

Much of the bar’s decor came from similarly eclectic channels. One memorable trip sent Gunipero out to Apex to pick up a vintage sign. When he arrived, a shirtless child stood in the driveway with a bow and arrow drawn.

“I had to get out of the car and be like, ‘I think I’m here to see your dad,’” Gunipero recalls. “And he lowered the bow.”

The organizing principle for everything on the walls is a sense of place: there’s a Flying Dog neon sign from one of the old Sam’s Quik Shop locations; a 1950s accordion, as a wink to their predecessor; and a cow skull from Gunipero’s family farm—a nod to Durham without leaning too hard into Bull City branding, which Wooldridge says has gotten “a little bit redundant.”

The bar’s name is a nod to North Carolina’s state toast (“Cheers to the Old North State”) and to the neighborhood the bar sits in, Old North Durham. On the side of the building, the owners painted the words “Old North Durham,” deliberately leaving off “bar” to make it feel more like a neighborhood marker than a business sign.

“Durham, at this point, feels like it’s in a flux of, what is this town really gonna be?” says Wooldridge. “A lot of what my opinion of downtown is right now is ‘other shit that got transplanted here that doesn’t make sense.’ We wanted a place that was a Durham place.”

“There’s a pride in being from Durham,” Wooldridge continues. “It’s kind of hard to describe what it is. But if you’re from here and you’ve lived here for a long time, there is a pride in being from here.”

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November 26, 2025 INDYweek.com 25

FOOD & DRINK

Three Tacos with Chicken Tinga at The Burritaco Burger Grill Eighties hits and a Christmas party invitation at a minimalist Mebane restaurant.

BY LENA GELLER lgeller@indyweek.com

This story is part of a column, Lunch Money, in which staff writer Lena Geller visits restaurants in the Triangle in an attempt to dine out for less than $15.

I

was compelled to visit the Burritaco Burger Grill after a reader wrote in a recommendation that came with a caveat. The food is great, the reader wrote, but “it’s a quirky place. No atmosphere.”

Pulling up to the Mebane restaurant on a recent Thursday afternoon, I find a setting that indeed feels spartan. The parking lot is unpaved and expansive, bordered by houses on one side and woods on the other. The restaurant itself is housed in a long, low cinder-block building painted white. Near the entrance, two heavy wooden dining tables sit under a concrete overhang, each with just one vinyl chair. The signage amounts to the restaurant’s name painted directly on the building, twice, in black block letters, and two instructive posters: “WELC ME” and “Smile you’re on camera.”

I slap on a grin and step inside.

The interior feels bigger than it appeared from the outside. That might be because the black-and-white checkered floor has a kind of optical illusion effect, or it might be because one-third of the restaurant is empty, save for a wooden stool with a Sony boombox perched on top.

The rest of the space is dotted with tables 26 INDYweek.com November 26, 2025

An order of The Order at The Burritaco Burger Grill in Mebane PHOTO BY LENA GELLER

and booths, each adorned with fake flowers in small vases. A few couples are eating quiet lunches. A server seats me at a booth.

“Can I get you anything to drink, sweet tea?” she intones, as though sweet tea were my name.

“Just water for now,” I reply. I haven’t looked at the prices yet.

She nods and disappears.

I examine the menu, a laminated two-sided sheet. As you might expect based on the name of the restaurant, it’s ambitious, with Mexican and American cuisine jostling for space: fajitas, carne asada, shrimp ceviche, quesabirrias, and enchiladas are listed alongside a hefty lineup of burgers and sandwiches—a “Carolina burger” with house chili, a chicken sandwich with smoked gouda—as well as entrees like jambalaya and pan-seared salmon.

The prices aren’t too steep, but with tax and tip, most of the menu items would put me over my $15 budget. The basic burrito ($10) or the definitively named “The Order – 3 Tacos” ($11) could work, though.

I decide on the tacos with chicken tinga.

As I wait for my food, the boombox cycles through ’80s hits: “I Melt with You,” “Mate-

rial Girl,” “Electric Avenue.” I get what the reader meant by no atmosphere, but I’d argue there’s plenty here—or, at least, a The exterior of The Burritaco Burger Grill PHOTO BY LENA GELLER certain kind of harmony. Above my booth hangs what appears to be a chandelier made from purple pipe ally American, he says, as they get travelers cleaners and Styrofoam. On a nearby wall, from all over stopping off Highway 70. there’s a small framed rug bordered by a He leaves me to enjoy my meal. The tacos collage of beer labels. A smiling scarecrow come with a generous portion of ultra-rich watches over the dining room. meat and all the properly zingy accoutreMy tacos arrive a few minutes later on ments to cut through it: white onion, salsa a metal sheet tray, delivered by a man in a verde, cilantro, lime. The chicken tinga, bright green camo-print bandanna. stained rust red from chipotle and tomato, “Are you the owner?” I ask. The reader isn’t shredded to threads but broken into who sent me here mentioned the owner, tender bite-sized pieces. I pick up a taco, Melvin, is “there every moment it’s open.” the soft tortilla conforming to the meat, “I think so,” he says coyly, looking around and when I bite down, the way the whole the restaurant as if to confirm. thing yields, something primal locks into Melvin tells me he worked in restaurants place. It’s deeply satisfying. for 17 years before opening Burritaco Burger With tax and tip, my total comes to Grill in 2022. The space previously housed $14.41. While Melvin is ringing me up, he a Mexican restaurant, so he wanted to keep asks if I’m looking for a server job. I tell him that element, for locals who were used to I’m not. He invites me to the staff Christit, but also add something more tradition- mas party anyway.

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November 26, 2025 INDYweek.com 27

CULTURE CALENDAR SUN 11/30

WED 11/26 MUSIC Velvet Hippo Annual Thanksgiving Eve Dance Party! 8:00pm. The Velvet Hippo Bar & Lounge, Durham.

Glitz & Gore Drag Variety Show 9:30 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Funk You, Toubab Krewe, Chill Paxton 7:30 p.m.

Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

The Gravy Boys 7:30 p.m.

The Blue Note Grill, Durham.

STAGE

High + Tight: A Lifetime of Soul, Funk, and Disco Fridays at 8 p.m. Wolfe & Porter, Raleigh.

Holiday Record Fair at Motorco Music Hall 12 p.m.

Motorco, Durham.

Cirque Holiday Pops Nov. 26-29, various times. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Elder Millennial Culture: Friendsgiving II 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Elf: The Musical Nov. 26-30, various times. DPAC, Durham.

You Can’t Take It With You

by Moss Hart & George S. Kaufman Nov. 19-Dec. 7, various times. PlayMakers Repertory Company, Chapel Hill.

FRI 11/28

Crimewave: A Darkwave Party 9 p.m. The Pour House Music Hall, Raleigh.

El Alfa 8 p.m. Enigma Night Club, Raleigh.

Fit For A King: LONELY GOD TOUR 6 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Joe Troop’s Truth Machine 7:00 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Live Music From Bradley Edge! 6 p.m. Five Points, Raleigh.

Kate McGarry, Keith Ganz, Gary Versace 7:30 p.m.

Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

Outlaw Bit 7 p.m. Scooters Bar & Grill, Raleigh.

Lauren Moore with M. Roomie, Nolen Durham 9 p.m. The Pour House Music Hall, Raleigh.

Yan Block 9 p.m. Ambis 1 Nightclub, Raleigh.

STAGE Joe Gatto Dec. 28-30, various times. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.

Samuel J. Comroe Dec. 28-30, various times.

Raleigh Improv, Cary.

MELT: Maxsunlove, Kali Fuchis, DJ Housedress 10 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

Moon Dog on Fire 8 p.m.

Moon Dog Meadery, Durham.

MON 12/1

MUSIC

MUSIC

The Spill Canvas & Mae 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

J.I.D: God Does Like Paradise Tour 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

SCREEN

Liam St. John 8 p.m. The Pour House Music Hall, Raleigh.

An Evening with Peter Billingsley and A Christmas Story 7 p.m. Carolina Theatre, Durham.

TUES 12/2

SAT 11/29 MUSIC The Beauty Operators’ Post-Thanksgiving Burn 7:30 p.m. The Blue Note Grill, Durham.

Alice Gerrard: Custom Made Woman 6 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy 8 p.m. Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw.

Philstock ‘25 6:30 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Bass Bunker: Heavy Bass Music, Lasers, Pole Dancers, Live Art & More 9 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.

Jared Freid: The Table For One Tour 11 a.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show 18+ 11 a.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Brainrot Rave at Motorco Music Hall 8:30 p.m.

Motorco, Durham.

Roy Wood Jr.: The Man of Many Fathers Book Tour 7:30 p.m. Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Crazy Chester: A Very Carrboro Tribute To The Band 7:45 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Saturday Night Dance Party at The Velvet Hippo!

9:30 p.m. The Velvet Hippo, Durham.

Crazy Chester performs at Cat’s Cradle on Saturday, November 29. PHOTO COURTESY OF CAT’S CRADLE

28 INDYweek.com November 26, 2025

Ernest Turner Trio 7 p.m.

Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

Holiday Music Series: Ally J 7:30 p.m. The Durham Hotel, Durham.

Little Image 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Megayacht, The Hypnotic Jerks 7:30 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Telekinetic Yeti, Thunderchief 8 p.m. The Pour House Music Hall, Raleigh.

MUSIC

STAGE

MUSIC Brad Linde Ensemble celebrates Gigi Gryce 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

LIKE TO PLAN AHEAD?

STAGE The Outsiders Dec. 2-7, various times. DPAC, Durham.

CULTURE CALENDAR

FIND OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR AT INDYWEEK.COM/CALENDAR

WED 12/3

THUR 12/4

FRI 12/5

MUSIC

MUSIC

STAGE

MUSIC

Hannah Juanita with Mose Wilson 8 p.m. The Pour House Music Hall, Raleigh.

AZUL, Donnie Deneil, Scrumptious 8 p.m. The Pour House Music Hall, Raleigh.

A Southern Christmas Carol Dec. 4-5, 7 p.m.

Shadowbox Studio, Durham.

AHEE, Subdocta 8:30 p.m.

Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

STAGE Are You Garbage? 7 p.m.

Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.

PAGE Humanities in Action: The College Sports Revolution 4:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

Legacy of Jazz: My Favorite Things III 7:30 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary.

Myka Lace, Kait Polgar, Roxanne Fortney, Laura Ivy 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Solfish, Weekend Therapy, Dialtone, Roman Spring 7:30 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

Willis 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Young Culture, Wakelee 7:30 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Here in America Dec. 4-21, various times. Burning Coal Theatre Company, Raleigh.

Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce Dec. 4-6, various times.

Reynolds Industries Theater, Durham.

Cowboy Christmas 7:30 p.m. The ArtsCenter, Carrboro.

Kris Monson, Walt Weiskopf, Steve Fidyk 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

Palmyra, Dissimilar South, Dogwood Tales 7 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Pearl Jam & Temple of The Dog Tribute Nite 9 p.m.

The Pour House Music Hall, Raleigh.

Shawn Purcell Group featuring Walt Weiskopf 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

Spice: DJ Ayo VIP, Gemynii, DJ Diavla 10 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

Susto Stringband, Oliver Hazard 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

That Mexican Ot: “Recess Tour - Part 2” 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Too Much Fun 7:30 p.m. The Blue Note Grill, Durham.

STAGE Theatre in the Park’s A Christmas Carol Dec. 5-7, various times. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

SAT 12/6

SUN 12/7

MUSIC

MUSIC

Cary Ballet Company: Diamond Reception 4 p.m.

Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

chokecherry 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Crys Matthews, Flamy Grant, Heather Mae 7 p.m.

The Pinhook, Durham.

Red Riding Hood 11 a.m.

Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Jake Richter Quartet 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

Joslyn & The Sweet Compression 9 p.m. The Pour House Music Hall, Raleigh.

OK Go 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

STAGE

Sienna Hubert Ross 7:30 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.

TUES 12/9

The Old Ceremony 8 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

MUSIC

Saturday Night Dance Party at The Velvet Hippo!

9:30 p.m. The Velvet Hippo, Durham.

A Charlie Brown Christmas with Iajhi Hampden Quintet 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

Start Making Sense: Talking Heads Tribute 8:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

Fly Anakin, Quelle Chris, $ilkMoney 7:00 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Take on Me: The Best of the 80’s on Vinyl 7 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

Holiday Music Series: United Strings of Color 7 p.m. The Durham Hotel, Durham.

PAGE Jessica Kirson 8 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Martha S. Jones: The Trouble of Color 6:00 p.m.

Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

STAGE

JD McPherson: A Rock N’ Roll Christmas Tour 8 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

NC Master Chorale: Joy of the Season 7:30 p.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Unwrapped: A Holiday Sketch Show 7:30 p.m.

Mettlesome Theater, Durham.

J.I.D. performs at the Ritz on Monday, December 1. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE RITZ November 26, 2025 INDYweek.com 29

PUZZLES CROSSWORD

RELEASE DATE—Sunday, November 23, 2025

Los Angeles Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle

To download a pdf of this puzzle or view its solution, visit indyweek.com/puzzles-page

Edited by Patti Varol

88 Pokémon that 124 Element with evolves into atomic number Lairon 33 90 Total 125 Actress Rapp 92 Damage 126 Up to this point 93 On a 127 Come to terms, ACROSS transatlantic in a way 1 Sermon giver crossing 7 Cold water 95 African grazer DOWN entry, maybe 1 Italian sculptor 13 Part of a Sheets 96 “U almost here?”

97 CPR experts Nicola or Slides 99 Show tune 2 Diminutive username that makes no Marvel hero 18 “Gimme, sense?

3 “Temperature” gimme!”

107 Forearm bone rapper __ Paul 20 No-handed 109 Beseech 4 Q tile score in cartwheel 110 Treacherous Scrabble 21 PD rank schemes 5 “If I had to 22 Allocation of 111 “__ got to hand guess ... ” royal flags it to you” 6 Rawhide ropes before the 7 Rollerblading King’s speech? 112 Fictional island paradise gear 25 “Curses” 8 Luau adornment 26 Stripes partners 115 Early AOL rival 116 “Ya fell for it!”

9 Disney villain 27 Ending for sub117 “Bring on the with a garden 28 Units of pop weekend!” of trapped 29 __ first-name letters merpeople basis 118 FOMO, for 10 __ acid 30 Auto repair “Fear of Missing 11 Apparel chain Out,” e.g.?

12 “Hostel” director 31 MacGraw of 122 Stink Roth “The Winds of 123 Dark horse and 13 Aviator’s outfit War” sitting duck 14 Toymaking giant 32 Like puppies 33 Consideration when switching religions?

37 Laotian pork salad 41 Beer merchant selection 42 Light touch 43 Overnight __ 45 Big cat in the sky 46 “If You __ Been There”: Dolly Parton track 49 Comedian Lydic 51 Popcorn seasoning 53 Boat bodies 55 Sushi-grade tuna 56 Part of a bedding bundle 58 San Andreas Fault?

61 Brand name derived from the Danish for “play well” 63 Gulf State leader 65 Small waterway 66 St. __: English surf town 67 Lab surface for a geneticist?

73 Beseeched 74 Nice negation 75 Rose Bowl org.

76 Days of __ 78 Birth announcement?

83 “Go no farther” 85 Chivalrous title 86 Old news source 87 Facial treatment

“THE MATH AIN’T MATHING” BY ADAM SIMPSON & KATIE HALE

|KU SUDOKU SU|DO

Difficulty level: HARD

© Puzzles by Pappocom

There is really only one rule to Sudoku: Fill in the game board so that the numbers 1 through 9 occur exactly once in each row, column, and 3x3 box. The numbers can appear in any order and diagonals are not considered. Your initial game board will consist of several numbers that are already placed. Those numbers cannot be changed. Your goal is to fill in the empty squares following the simple rule above.

If you’re stumped, find the answer keys for these puzzles and archives of previous puzzles (and their solutions) at indyweek.com/puzzles-page or scan this QR code for a link. Best of luck, and have fun!

30 INDYweek.com November 26, 2025

11/23/25

15 Singer India.__ 16 Composer Stravinsky 17 Binoculars part 19 “Last Call” singer Braxton 23 Turns down?

24 Say impulsively, with “out” 25 __ Hopper: “The Muppet Movie” villain 30 Gooey sammies 31 Toward the stern 32 South American kin of a raccoon 34 The Mystery Machine, e.g.

35 __ polish 36 “__ you so!”

38 “We can’t come back from this!”

39 Change ZIP codes 40 Chief on deck 44 Deity of destruction 46 A.I. of 1960s cinema 47 “Beg pardon” 48 Look for a scandal

49 Like a wrung84 “Black Swan” out cloth costumes 50 Expressionist 89 Accumulates painter Nolde 91 Aberdeen topper 51 Tantrum 94 Biblical mount 52 Over 95 Stand-up job?

54 Groceries date 96 As a group 57 Supermodel 98 Pliant Klum 100 Rappel, in 59 Red-haired ape British parlance 60 Like major 101 Achilles __ organs 102 West African 62 Jump on board? capital 64 Step on a 103 Los Angeles shampoo bottle cagers 68 Neon-striped fish 104 Shell industry 69 Loopy shape 105 Reveal clearly 70 Uno más siete 106 Call maker 71 Tikka masala 108 French city that side sounds small 72 Cedar Point 112 Cold War rival, expanse initially 77 Fail to hit save 113 Proctor’s call before closing, 114 Harbinger e.g.

115 Skirt that falls 78 Fictional around the shin company with 116 Austin, TX, wacky products festival 79 Wee drink 117 Add a bit of 80 Verdi’s realm color 81 On one’s 119 Go together well doorstep 120 Angsty genre 82 Second intro?

121 Ready to go

©2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

INDY CLASSIFIEDS CLASSY@INDYWEEK.COM

ANSWER TO TODAY’S PUZZLE

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HEALTH & WELL BEING

EMPLOYMENT Sr Software Engineer First Citizens Bank seeks a Sr Software Engineer in Raleigh, NC to provide complex tech support to data processing sys. Reqs: BS in Comp Sci, CIS, Info Tech Mgmt, or rel + 4 yrs or MS in Comp Sci, CIS, Info Tech Mgmt, or rel + 2 yrs. Remote role, hired in TX, NC. 5-10% dom trvl. For more info & to apply, go to https://jobs.firstcitizens.com/jobs & ref Job #2025-31749

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Lead Software Engineer First Citizens Bank seeks a Lead Software Eng in Raleigh, NC to dev & support core banking solutions.

Reqs: BS in in CompSci, Eng, or rel + 6 yrs or GED/ High School Diploma + 12 yrs. Remote role, may be hired in several mkts across US. Base pay gen b/w $169,125 to $222,583/yr. For more info & to apply, go to https://jobs.firstcitizens.com/jobs & ref Job #31756.

y here!” eup

©2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

11/9/25

LOCAL ARTS, MUSIC, FOOD, ETC. in your inbox every Friday

LAST PRINT ISSUE’S CROSSWORD SOLUTION ANSWER TO TODAY’S PUZZLE

the Triangle’s Arts & Culture Newsletter

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11/9/25 November 26, 2025 INDYweek.com 31

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