Vimala’s Curryblossom Cafe is an Indian restaurant on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. Vimala Rajendran, an Indian immigrant to the United States, opened the restaurant in 2010. The restaurant purveys home-style Indian cuisine, and Southern food with local produce and pasture-raised meats. The company has provided free lunches in support of refugees at various events.
Vimala Rajendran was born in Kerala and raised in Mumbai, attending college in Sion at age 17. She married at age 19 and moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to join her husband while pregnant with her first child. Rajendran returned to India in 1983 and returned to the US to Chapel Hill in 1985.
She began selling food in Chapel Hill in 1994 with weekly donation-based community dinners. Two years prior, she had cooked a large dinner for neighbors and was motivated to continue. They also served as a source of income for Rajendran’s family. As a dependent spouse, she did not have legal authorization to work, and she served take-out dinners in an “underground” status from her house until 2010.
The restaurant’s fare consists of home-style Indian cuisine and North Carolinian cuisine. Rajendran’s daughter Anjali was the restaurant’s pastry chef, while son Rajeev and daughter Manju work for Vimala’s, as needed.
Rajendran cooks many of her mother’s recipes of the cuisine of Kerala, like sambar. It is also inspired by Maharashtrian cuisine, where Rajendran grew up, and Punjabi cuisine, especially samosas. The restaurant’s menu also includes tandoori chicken, pulled pork, chole, dosas, collard greens, chai, and cardamom-chocolate brownies.
Vimala is a longtime activist for progressive causes including grassroots media, farmworker and restaurant worker rights, and environmental justice. Historian Marcie Cohen Ferris described Vimala Rajendran as “a truly important gatekeeper in our state’s food movement.”
Vimala’s
The Courtyard, 431 West Franklin Street, Suite 415, Chapel Hill, NC 27516
(919) 929-3833
Hours:
Monday – Wednesday, 11:30 am – 8:00 pm
Thursday – Saturday, 11:30 am – 9:00 pm
