‘Mom and pop’ Indian grocery store and cafe opens in North Raleigh

In a former pharmacy near where Falls of Neuse Road meets Interstate 540, a dream is expanding in North Raleigh.

Divyesh and Mona Patel owned and managed a few Subways before taking a chance during the pandemic to open Bombay Central, an Indian grocery store in Morrisville.

Customers poured in, but the Patels quickly noticed how far some were driving to get there.

“We were getting customers from Fayetteville, Wake Forest, Raleigh, everywhere, everywhere,” said Rohan Patel, the couple’s son. “So we thought there was a need from the community and also making ourselves more accessible to other areas.”

More than 110,000 people of Indian heritage live in North Carolina, and more than 40 percent of them live in Wake County, according to U.S. Census data. Wake County’s Indian population grew by nearly 30,000 residents from 2009 to 2021.

The Patels opened Bombay Central Raleigh in the former Walgreens building at 1910 Falls Valley Drive in late October. Ashish Triphati, Karan Desai, Parth Patel and Rohan Patel are partners in the business, according to Rohan Patel.

“When people say mom and pop, shops like this are the definition of a mom and pop shop,” he said. “Like you will either see one or the other or both of them in the store always doing something. And it’s just something that they’ve always wanted to do and see it come to fruition. It’s pretty big for them. And it’s all from the passion that they have behind it.”

The new store has a larger kitchen and more cafe seating than the Morrisville store, but fans can still expect house favorites like vada pav, a fried potato patty on a toasted bun with sweet and spicy chutney, and dabeli, a potato mixture served with chutney on a bun with pomegranates and roasted peanuts.

“It’ll give us a lot more room to play with our menu a little bit more for that location,” Rohan said.

The family focuses on “Indian street food” in particular Gujarati-style items, but they’ve expanded their stock to include staples of southern Indian cooking.

“We have the big-box brands as well, but we have a variety of spices,” Rohan said. “We have a dedicated shelf for South India spices for South Indian style cooking as well. That’s one of the benefits of the new store that we are now able to host a whole more array of products, more than we could hold at the Morrisville location.”

The store is open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and the kitchen is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.