The biggest compliment Khiyara and Rhonda Wynn receive when people walk into Sistas on Montford in Asheville, North Carolina, is, “Oh, you got it smelling good up in here.”
The mother-and-daughter duo get to the restaurant around 8:30 each morning and don’t notice the smell of onions, peppers, garlic, and onion powders, or the smoked turkey neck that goes into the vegetables. The two co-owners and chefs will be the first to tell you, “We don’t smell it when we’re back there doing it.”
What they won’t tell you is that the aroma, the kind you can almost taste on your tongue, is one they’ve stopped noticing. They’ve lived with it for most of their lives, thanks to Margaret Harrison, the family’s matriarch, after whom the restaurant is named. The community called their mother and grandmother Sista. Many knew Sista for The New Ritz Cafe, the restaurant and café in Asheville she owned for over 30 years.
“I remember her restaurant was an atmosphere filled with laughter and food,” Khiyara tells Travel Noire. “It was a community café with a lounge setting where everybody came to chill after work with music.”
Carrying A Legacy Ripped Away
Inside The New Ritz Cafe, Sista sold her famous fried fish and pinto beans until she was forced to close the restaurant in its original location in 2001 due to the effects of urban renewal. The rent went up, and Sista was priced out of the area. Her closure was not an isolated loss. It was part of a sweeping pattern: urban renewal.
Urban renewal is a process often led by local governments and private investors that involves “revitalizing” urban and rural areas by renovating existing structures or constructing new ones. While the goal is centered on economic growth and aesthetic appeal of neighborhoods, these projects often come with a cost for Black and disenfranchised communities. Researchers have documented how these projects lead to the displacement of longtime residents and the erasure of historic neighborhoods, a phenomenon often referred to as gentrification.
In Asheville, urban renewal projects took place between the 1960s and 1980s. The East Riverside Urban Renewal Project targeted Asheville’s Southside neighborhood. According to a study from the University of Maryland (UMD), the Southside was very significant. It was home to “3,902 residents living in 1,179 households, which accounted for about 50% of Asheville’s Black population and 7% of its total population at the time,” according to the research. The Southside was Asheville’s “premier Black business district, surrounded by a large residential neighborhood,” UMD’s study says.
However, the project destroyed more than 1,000 Black-owned homes and businesses on the Southside, according to the Black Cultural Heritage Trail. In fact, a significant number of Black-owned establishments were destroyed, making the East Riverside Urban Renewal Project one of the largest in the southeastern United States and the largest in Asheville.
“The scale of the devastation here was unmatched,” UMD researchers noted
For the Wynn family, it’s emotional to honor their matriarch in the same community where she lived.
“This is a very big deal for us,” says a teary-eyed Khiyara. “The area where my grandmother’s restaurant was located and where we’ve opened was all predominantly Black. Now, not so much. It’s also a huge deal because there aren’t many spaces that cater to authentic Black food in Asheville.”
Sistas On Montford Honors Heritage And Community
Unfortunately, Sista did not live to see the restaurant come to fruition. The women opened Sistas on Montford less than a year after she died. Still, Khiyara and Rhonda feel her presence throughout the day, and there are nostalgic moments.
“We get that feeling around 12 when the lobby’s packed and again after we slow down, and then there’s a dinner rush,” Rhonda adds.
There are some differences between the two restaurants. Sista had a more traditional sit-down and a jukebox inside The New Ritz Cafe. Khiyara and Rhonda’s restaurant is located inside a convenience store that’s primarily for takeout. While seating is limited, the new restaurant carries Sista’s tradition of home-made comfort food rooted in their family’s history and love for community.
Every dish on the menu honors Sista. Guests can expect seasoned fried fish, their distinctive potato salad, macaroni and cheese, collard greens with turkey neck, cornbread dressing, yams, and rice with gravy on the menu. Pinto beans are served only on Wednesdays, just like Sista. Desserts on the menu include pound cakes, banana pudding, sweet potato pie, specialty cakes, and a lineup of house-made flavored lemonades.
“She would be smiling from ear to ear that we’re honoring her,” Rhonda said when asked what she believes her mom would say about the restaurant.
Both women hope to carry the same legacy as Sista 20 years from now, to the tune of, “Dang, them girls really served some good food.”
