New Indian grocery store coming to southern Wake County. Here’s what we know.
Dal is a native Indian ingredient and beloved lentil dish often served over rice.
The blend of lentils and spices can sit and simmer for hours and can be enjoyed as a regular meal or on a sick day.
To make a simple dal following food reporter Priya Krishna’s recipe, you might need split pink or red lentils, turmeric, kosher salt and lime juice. For a chhonk seasoning, you might grab ghee oil, chile powder, cumin seeds, dried chiles, and fresh cilantro.
There are only a few places around the Triangle where you can find all the ingredients to make this dish. Now one of them wants to expand to southern Wake County.
Plans submitted for new store
The Spices Hut Indian Grocery, known for its authentic Indian food, spices and goods, plans to expand to Fuquay-Varina.
Who wants to open the store? Developer Indus Foods Cary/GLC and store owner Ramesh Gandhamanen want to open the new grocery on North Judd Parkway NE, next to Tommy’s Express Carwash.
Plans show a 27,374-square-foot building with 14,216 square feet for the store and 13,158 square feet for other unidentified retail stores. The building will have 127 parking spaces for customers.
In a phone interview, Gandhamanen said he plans to continue being a hub for Indian food and goods in Wake County.
He opened stores in Cary’s Park West Village and in in a former Golden Corral on Morrisville’s Chapel Hill Road in 2015 .
Why did they choose Fuquay-Varina? Gandhamanen chose Fuquay-Varina because of the number of people moving to the area.
“I see a lot of people coming from other states coming to North Carolina, especially to the Triangle area,” he said. “A lot of people are moving towards Holly Springs and Fuquay-Varina.”
What do his stores carry? The Spices Hut sells a cooking items like spices, rice, flour, frozen Indian meals, snacks, dals (dried beats, lentils or peas), and sweets. The store also carries vegetables and, for movie and music lovers, a library of classic Hindi and regional movies and CDs.
What needs to happen next
A timeline for when the Fuquay-Varina store will open has not been decided. All of the plans are preliminary.
According to Pam Davison, the town’s planning director, the plans have been presented as the conversion of a portion of the existing building.
The town needs to further review the submitted plans to make sure they meet requirements for fire safety,ADA access and bathrooms, among other requirements for new stores.
Because Indus Foods Cary/GLC is retrofitting an existing building, it did not need to submit a site plan like a developer constructing a building from the ground up would need to do.
Indian population, businesses growing
If plans for the store move forward, The Spices Hut will add to the expansion of Indian grocery stores in the Triangle.
At the height of the pandemic, Divyesh and Mona Patel opened Bombay Central, an Indian grocery store in Morrisville, and last month, they opened a second location in Central Raleigh in the former Walgreens building at 1910 Falls Valley Drive. The “mom and pop” shop has a kitchen and cafe seating serving Indian-street food, spices, and other cooking items.
How big is the Indian population in Wake County? As of 2021, over 44,000 Indian, and over 83,000 Asian, residents lived in Wake County, according to the latest U.S. Census data.
More than 110,000 Indian and Southeast Asian people live in the state, according to the U.S. Census. The percentage of Indian residents in Fuquay-Varina is smaller compared to Morrisville, where the town is over 40% Indian, and Cary where Asian residents make up about 20%. The entire Asian population in Fuquay-Varina was less than 3%, as of 2020.
“I’m hoping to see large crowds of people and hoping to see the retail spaces fill up,” Gandhamanen said. “I have already gotten some inquires for the retail space.”
Gandhamanen said a laundromat, an aquatic center and a dental office have expressed interest in setting up shop next to the future grocery store.
