(quoted in Bouloubasis 2016).
The process rids the food of its connection to the people and history. Yet, those who produce and consume this gentrified food still make a claim to the cachet of local history and authenticity. The food itself then parallels the redevelopment of the city, as the uses and meanings of old buildings and neighborhoods are being repurposed for new patterns of consumption.
Savior Entrepreneurs and Demon Developers
Upscale restaurants were the first to venture into the untested retail waters of Durham’s city center, and food businesses are still opening regularly. In telling the origin stories of their businesses, the early wave of restaurateurs and bar owners consistently emphasize the high vacancy rate of downtown and the risk that meant for them: “Downtown was basically abandoned … no one hung around after 5pm” and put most simply: “There was just nothing here.” These entrepreneurs had to renovate buildings, as nothing was available to rent that met the specific needs of gourmet kitchens. Their narratives, and those in the popular press, emphasize their plucky and entrepreneurial spirit, as they took major personal risks to bring fancy foods to Durham. I term them “savior entrepreneurs” because of their self-representation as saviors of a city that was in precipitous decline, their integral role in its rescue, and the risk they assumed by taking on this role. Food entrepreneurs, then, are not just in the business of food, they are in the business of being urban developers.
These entrepreneurs have a cosmopolitan life history, having lived in, trained in, or extensively traveled to other metropolitan areas (e.g., New York City, Boston, Washington, DC) from where they draw inspiration. They draw on their cultural capital to know what is popular and will generate interest in a city such as Durham that includes many people with a similar cultural background. Rather than creating new trends, they followed what they saw in other cities, in particular Brooklyn, New York, and Portland, Oregon, are often evoked. They took a risk in locating downtown but, having seen the success of their business models in other cities, they had some assurance that there was market demand. As one bar owner noted: “I wrote my business plan while sitting in a brewery in Portland. I already had the idea for the kind of brewery I wanted to open. But being in that neighborhood and seeing what they did …”
In this sense, Durham’s food industry is not especially cutting edge. A bartender captured this when comparing the city to Brooklyn: “Durham is not Brooklyn yet. But we are going that way. Nothing in Durham is new. All of these things were happening 15 years ago in New York.”
Restaurateurs and bar owners are keenly aware of the city’s standing compared to other places. There is also anxiety about the need to catch up and keep up with other cities, as stated by a bar owner: “Portland is obviously further ahead [than Durham] in funkiness. We’re a little behind. But, in five years we could be like them. We’re a similar kind of city. We have the neighborhoods, for example.”
The potential of Durham to move along a similar trajectory to places like Portland, Oregon, given its similar characteristics, was viewed as a cause for optimism and tempers the risk narrative. In addition, given the national trend of gentrification and the local growth coalition’s push to revitalize downtown, it seems that their efforts had a good chance of showing a quick return. City government agencies have assisted them with various programs, such as grants and low-interest loans, help finding an appropriate space, permitting, licensing, tax reductions on historic properties, and streetscaping (sidewalks, street lighting, etc.), thereby mitigating the risk of locating in the downtown core.
Of all of Durham’s neighborhoods undergoing redevelopment, Central Park is the most illustrative of the power of eateries and bars to generate new development and neighborhood transformation. It is just a 10-minute walk to downtown and prior to Durham’s regeneration it was a lower-middle income neighborhood with many immigrant families from Latin America. It gained its moniker of “DIY” due to the influx of new homeowners and entrepreneurs who flooded the area after about 2008. These DIY-ers purchased inexpensive homes and fixed them up, using personal savings, loans, and sweat equity. One by one, restaurants, breweries, bars, fitness studios, a theater, an event space, and other businesses catering to affluent consumers popped up in the area. When the New York Times featured Durham in its “36 Hours” series, the restaurants and bars in this area figured prominently because they offered evidence of the city’s “youth-driven renaissance” (Williams 2013). As many business owners purchased their buildings, they are not threatened by rising rents. Instead, they marvel, bemoan, and perhaps secretly congratulate themselves on the price increases. These homeowners and business owners are strongly wedded to the savior narrative, as they describe the run-down character of the neighborhood before their interventions, often claiming that there was “nothing there.”
However, the “nothing there” narrative ignores the immigrants, people of color, and low-income residents who populated the neighborhood before the DIY trend. “Nothing there” really means that there was nothing there of interest to affluent, hip, and/or white consumers. Rather, retail in the area was sparse but included a well-trafficked Hispanic grocery store, a corner store, an immigrant-rights nonprofit organization, and several mechanics (the grocery store, nonprofit, and some of the mechanics have been displaced because of rising rents). The reality of residential and business displacement due to the influence of these saviors on rising rents, home values, and property taxes is routinely ignored in this narrative.
The success of the neighborhood in attracting a youthful crowd with disposable income soon appeared on the radar of real estate developers. The savior narrative of the local residents and entrepreneurs was quickly replaced by a narrative of “demon developers,” whose capitalist intentions to make a profit on the neighborhood’s hip reputation would quash the same quirky small businesses that made the area popular among white and affluent residents. The awareness among this group that they themselves had a gentrifying effect on the neighborhood is superseded by their self-valorization compared to the demon developers. Against this backdrop, Durham’s most controversial re-development project, Liberty Warehouse, sits in one corner of the neighborhood. To Durhamites committed to the idea of Durham as a gritty and affordable counter-culture city that honors its architectural history, Liberty Warehouse is a nightmare come true in concrete, steel, and glass.
Built in 1940, Liberty Warehouse was the central tobacco auction house, where each season farmers brought their tobacco crop hoping to reap the best price from buyers representing the major cigarette brands. The area had many warehouses and was also surrounded by banks, car dealerships, and retail outlets where farmers could both save and spend their earnings while visiting the city. Liberty Warehouse was a victim of the changing dynamics of the tobacco industry and auctions ended here in 1984. Starting in the 2000s, several artists and businesses rented space in the building, and the affordable and central location led to its rebirth as a hub of arts activity (Thomson 2017).
In 2006, the owner sold the warehouse to Greenfire Development, a local real estate development company that was actively renovating buildings for sale and rent throughout the central city. Greenfire, however, failed to maintain the structure and in 2011, the roof collapsed during a rainstorm, forcing the relocation of the artists and other tenants. For the next three years Greenfire left the building to rot. The building had historic preservation status, which caused considerable issues for the developer. They petitioned the city to get the designation removed so that they could sell the building to another developer, East-West Partners. East-West was a regional development company known for building mixed-use condominium buildings, and they wished to mostly demolish the structure to make way for such a project. It quickly became apparent that the pro-development city council was going to vote to remove the listing. The mayor said: “We’ve waited for three years and nothing has happened. My rationale before and my rationale now is to get something done” (quoted in Mihaylova 2013). Preservation Durham, the local historic preservation group, supported the change and entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the developers that allowed them to have input in the design process.
