The Last Expected Thing

Speaking of immodest dress, a restaurant here in North Carolina -- nowhere near my part of the state, but down east in Greensboro -- has been getting a lot of attention for adopting a dress code. The restaurant, named Kim's Kafe has adopted a rule that you may not wear "skimpy" clothes, short shorts, and that women may not wear leggings. 

"Is that legal?" asks local radio station WRAL, and is astonished to discover that the answer is 'definitely yes.' 

The local CBS News affiliate  ran a news clip asking the same question, and getting the same answer. USA Today covered it as well.

Who is this 'radical misogynist' who hates skimpy clothes and loves trampling on people's freedom of self-expression? You might guess at the answer from the fact that the name of the business is abbreviated 'KK,' suggesting the hat trick: perhaps these are that most regular villain of our popular culture, conservative white Southern racists. 

You would be completely wrong. 

Kim's Kafe is a soul food restaurant. A visit to their Facebook page makes clear that this is a worshipful, neighborhood cafe in the black community, and they're fed up with immodesty for upright religious reasons. 

The national media is completely blanking that out. Some of the local press makes it clear.

“She’s been a community staple for years,” the source said. “She would pull up to different nightclubs to serve food. She’s given food to the homeless countless times. If you’re someone in her area that patronizes her business, she’s the first one to jump and go overboard.”

When the business was finally able to open a storefront off of Dolley Madison Road after the pandemic, the community was excited to welcome another Black restaurant to the scene.

“There’s not that many Black businesses around here,” said Mutsa Mukahanana, who visited the restaurant last year after it went viral. “There’s not a lot of options for soul food.”

It sounds like she got her start carrying plates of food to sell in nightclubs, eventually earning enough to open the brick-and-mortar store. Many of her base customers are likely 'exotic dancers,' and while she wants them to come around she also wants the community as a whole to feel like it's a decent place where they can bring their family. The motto of the restaurant, "God did it," is also suggestive of motive, as are the worshipful videos she posts on FB.

Apparently she originally became famous because of a TikTok account called Ride with Yusuf, who loved the place. 

"When I had her food last year it was amazing," the TikTok star who goes by the name Ride with Yusuf, and has 140,000 followers, said on Labor Day. "The love and soul she put in that food was amazing."

It's her right and her business, he said before adding that he didn't know anything about her business policies. He said he had nothing but good interactions with her[.] 

So if any of you like soul food, and happen to be in Greensboro, I hear it's pretty good.