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We're often asked about our pricing, produce, decor, menus, and various features that set us apart from the general expectations surrounding an Indian restaurant. Read on if you're interested in the "why" behind what we do!
Pricing
Nearly every day, someone comments on our prices at Cheeni.
We're proud to serve our home-cooked, sentimental, regional Indian cuisine, but our prices reflect more than what meets the eye. Cheeni is an Indian restaurant, but we operate as locally as possible. Our produce, garnishes, distribution services, select grains, and even dairy are all sourced from North Carolina whenever possible. Non-commodity ingredients will naturally increase costs, but we consider this a benefit; at home and in our restaurant, we prefer to eat, cook, and serve as local as possible.
For example: one whole grocery store chicken averages around $18.00, but roughly 8 lbs of Joyce Farms Chicken thighs (which we use in all our kababs and chicken kaaris) is $54.99. Other factors influence pricing, too. We pay our staff a baseline of $16.00/hr before tips. Our full-time staff makes over $19.00/hr before tips. Labor costs factor into food pricing as well.
What else factors into our pricing? We're located in the heart of Downtown Durham, and rent is above average (though we're so lucky to be where we are). Our spices are imported in large quantities, factoring into food costs as well. Altogether, we prioritize honest, transparent, and fair pricing. Our prices are different than some are accustomed to, and that's okay; we are so thankful to bring our food to the table at a price point that allows us to do what we do.
Produce
Our produce is essential to our restaurant's production. We're big fans of Got To Be NC, an initiative that encourages the commercial support of NC products. To name a few of our standard, regular suppliers: we source seasonal produce and specific, smaller orders of greens, garnishes, chilies, fruits, and vegetables from local micro-farmers, like Bull City Greens. We source our larger produce orders from Blue Skies (Wendell, NC), which ensures our bulkier produce supply is as local and rural as possible, close to the Durham area. We love RanLew Dairy. We exclusively serve Joyce Farms Chicken. We work with Cheney Brothers to see how local we can make our oils, paper goods, and commodity products. We enthusiastically support MySpiceFix to ensure we're keeping imported spices within our local economy, and we're constantly seeking local collaborations when it comes to new additions to our kitchen.
Decor & Menus
Our concept is incredibly sentimental. The product of Preeti Waas & her lifelong food memories, our menu is heartfelt to its core; our selection is a rotating, seasonal, and always reminiscent curation of dishes from Preeti herself. Our offerings are different than American-Indian standards, intentionally showcasing the beautiful regionality of the Indian diaspora and subsequent culinary heritages. We aim to cook what we know, rarely re-inventing the wheel, but when Preeti does, the result reflects the fusion between Punjab and South India that was core to Preeti's childhood. In our restaurant, menus are narrative-based, including pages of kahaniyaan, or stories, to help guide the diner through our offerings. Our dining room is fashioned to look and feel like a dining room within a home.
Our bar menu is built from kitchen ingredients, acknowledging that the Indian kitchen is abundant enough, and good enough, to birth a bar program, as Western kitchens are famous for doing in the world of bartending. Our cocktails range from savory to sour to herbaceous to sweet, all while strictly building upon the foundations of our ingredients and in-house preparations.
& More...
Truly, Cheeni is nothing but a restaurant built on hard work, determination, and the realization of a dream. It's a sentimental concept born from a mother, immigrant, and determined cook. It's a reflection of the beauty and originality of cooking from a regional perspective and the history that is rich within Indian culture and cuisine. And it's a space for community, which we believe is integral to our restaurant, and our lives outside of work.
Thank you for reading, for learning, for supporting us, and for helping to create a local community wherein restaurants like ours (and all our talented peers) can thrive. We look forward to welcoming you to Cheeni, an extension of our home, and we are so glad to do so soon.