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 retail use. The building will have 127 parking spaces.

In an 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 .

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.

Indian population, businesses growing

Why did he 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.”

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.

If plans for the store move forward, The Spices Hut will add to the number of Indian groceries 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 on Falls Valley Drive. The shop has a kitchen and cafe serving Indian-street food, spices and other cooking items.

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 town needs to make sure the plans meet requirements for fire safety,Americans with Disabilities Act access and bathrooms, among other requirements for new stores.

Because the developer is retrofitting an existing building, it did not need to submit a site plan as a building being constructed from the ground up would need.

“I’m hoping to see large crowds of people and hoping to see the retail spaces fill up,” Gandhamanen said.

A laundromat, an aquatic center and a dental office have expressed interest in operating next to the future grocery store, he said.