Beloved Mami’s rotisserie in Raleigh sells home to Cook Out. What’s next?

For over a decade, Mami’s rotisserie chicken restaurant has stood out on the corner of Wake Forest Road and McNeil Street in Raleigh. Its bright yellow 3,200-square-foot building became a local landmark for Triangle diners seeking authentic Latin-style fare.

But it’s closing shop — at least, in that location.

Its owner, Celina Mentore, under the business name Palme Real Estate Holdings LLC, recently sold the property at 2401 Wake Forest Road for $1.165 million to Cook Out-Zebulon Inc. The entity is known to be the real estate investment arm of the popular North Carolina fast food chain, according to the Triangle Business Journal, which first reported the sale.

Now, the matriarch of the family and one of the first to bring fast-casual Peruvian rotisserie chicken to the Triangle, is searching for a new home. They’re vacating their current premises by September.

“Even though it’s a big location, it’s not enough space,” Eddie Mentore, the owner’s son, told The N&O. “We want to scale and have plans to open locations all over the Triangle. But the only way to do that is to relocate our headquarters.”

Mami’s, then called Mami Nora’s, first opened in Durham in 2007. Mentore said his mother and her sister, Nora Palma, both immigrants from El Salvador, started the brand together. It eventually grew to four locations before Palma retired in 2015.

Palma’s two children — Ranbir and Ruby Bakkshi — took over three of the four restaurants and rebranded them to Alpaca Chicken. The chain now has 10 locations throughout the greater Triangle.

Mentore kept the remaining property at Wake Forest Road, along with its original brand and logo, but shortened the restaurant’s name to Mami’s. It’s the only one using the original brand’s name that remains.

In 2019, Mentore opened a second location at 6711 Glenwood Ave. But on the day of its opening, after a year of renovations, an electrical fire forced it to close indefinitely. The family didn’t have insurance, and it never reopened.

Even so, they persevered.

“I’m proud of my mother for sticking it out,” Mentore said. “She’s now in a position where she wants to open a new location, and it seems like we will.”

The family is negotiating to secure a bigger venue in the same neighborhood. An announcement is imminent, but he wouldn’t say more until the deal is done. Their promise: “Customers won’t have to travel very far to get their chicken.”

Cook Out’s immediate plans for the Wake Forest Road site are not known. Officials were unavailable for comment.