[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”Section” padding_mobile=”off” fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”3.0.47″][et_pb_fullwidth_image admin_label=”Fullwidth Image Divider” src=”https:\/\/wunc2017.nextgenradio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/06\/WUNC_divider_web2.gif” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ saved_tabs=”all” \/][et_pb_fullwidth_image admin_label=”Fullwidth Image” src=”https:\/\/wunc2017.nextgenradio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/06\/MaggieBlunkMiller001.jpg” animation=”off” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ \/][et_pb_fullwidth_post_title admin_label=”Fullwidth Post Title” categories=”off” comments=”off” featured_image=”off” module_bg_color=”rgba(255,255,255,0)” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ title_all_caps=”off” \/][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” _builder_version=”3.0.47″][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”3.0.47″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n
The phone rings for the the fourth or fifth time in so many minutes inside a soul food joint in Durham, North Carolina. The place looks more like an accountant’s office than a restaurant.<\/p>\n
\u201cChicken Hut,\u201d answers matriarch Peggy Tapp. \u201cYes ma\u2019am, we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Chicken Hut has opened and closed locations and faced family tragedies. The city even built a freeway through it. But they serve the same chicken they have been dishing up since they opened in the 1950s.<\/p>\n
Peggy reads into the phone receiver from a tattered notebook in a soft voice: \u201cOkay, today we have salmon patties, baked chicken with gravy, barbecue beef ribs, country smothered pork chops, collards, rice, mac \u2018n cheese, fried okra, mashed potatoes, butter bean with corn.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Chicken Hut is a Durham institution. Claiborne Tapp, Jr., Peggy\u2019s husband, opened the Chicken Hut in 1957 \u2014 they think it\u2019s the oldest black-owned restaurant in the city. Claiborne had studied biology and was a poultry farmer by trade when he created the business.<\/p>\n
At one point, Claiborne had five Chicken Huts in Durham and Chapel Hill, but before he died in 1998, the family downsized the chain to just their flagship store, a few blocks south of the historically black North Carolina Central University. He had a stroke, and worried that five restaurants was too many for his wife to run by herself.<\/p>\n
Peggy and her two sisters worked in the restaurant as teenagers. Claiborne was Peggy\u2019s boss before he was her husband. Ruth Dash left the restaurant to work in a high school, but returned when Claiborne fell ill.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe really needed some help,\u201d says Dash. \u201cI told my husband I would stay here for a little while to help Peggy and then I would move on, but here I am 20 years later still helping Peggy.\u201d<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_audio admin_label=”Audio” title=”Listen to an interview with the Tapps” artist_name=”Maggie Blunk Miller” album_name=”Next Gen Radio” image_url=”https:\/\/wunc2017.nextgenradio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/06\/MaggieBlunkMiller005cropped.jpg” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_color=”#7EBEC5″ background_layout=”dark” border_style=”solid” audio=”https:\/\/wunc2017.nextgenradio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/06\/MaggieMiller_Final_2.mp3″ \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”Row” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n
Chicken Hut is in a neighborhood with a strong legacy of black entrepreneurship. Other black-owned businesses, though, have struggled to keep the doors open.<\/p>\n
The official end of the Jim Crow era in 1964 integrated the south, but North Carolina Central University Archivist Andre\u2019 Vann says it was a double-edged sword.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome African-American institutions still flourished, but many were moved by the wayside because African-Americans no longer only had to go to those African-American institutions,\u201d he told the Indy Week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were able to go places we hadn\u2019t been able to,\u201d says Peggy. \u201cSo that kind of hurt businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still feeling the sting of integration, businesses in the Hayti neighborhood \u2014 once famed for being the \u201cBlack Capital of the South\u201d \u2014 were hit with devastating news: In 1958, Durham planned to \u201crevitalize\u201d the neighborhood. This urban renewal plan included building a freeway right through the area that would displace many of the black-owned businesses \u2014 including Chicken Hut.<\/p>\n
The city offered to relocate Chicken Hut\u2019s original location and other black-owned businesses to Tin City, a building that would house them all under one roof. The Tapp\u2019s opted instead to buy land south of Hayti on Fayetteville St. and rebuild from the ground up. That\u2019s where their flagship store stands today.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a struggle. You are not going to have everything peaches and cream,\u201d says Peggy, glancing at her son Tre. \u00a0\u201cYou have to be a fighter and I am a fighter, and his daddy was a fighter, and I think he is going to be a fighter.\u201d<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_gallery admin_label=”Gallery” gallery_ids=”516,519,518,515″ fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ \/][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n
The Chicken Hut has been a Durham institution since 1957. Peggy and Tre Tapp run the restaurant with the help of Peggy’s sisters, who have worked there since high school. Tre’s two daughters, Leah, 8, and Jade, 9, are the third generation of Tapps at Chicken Hut. They say they will take over the restaurant one day. (Photo credit: Maggie Blunk Miller\/NextGenRadio)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”Row” _builder_version=”3.0.47″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_image admin_label=”Image” src=”https:\/\/wunc2017.nextgenradio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/06\/MaggieBlunkMiller002.jpg” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ show_in_lightbox=”off” url_new_window=”off” use_overlay=”off” sticky=”off” align=”left” always_center_on_mobile=”on” border_style=”solid” force_fullwidth=”off” \/][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”3.0.51″]<\/p>\n The Chicken Hut\u2019s current location on Fayetteville Street, where they moved when their block of Roxboro Road was destroyed. (Maggie Blunk Miller\/NextGenRadio)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_image admin_label=”Image” src=”https:\/\/wunc2017.nextgenradio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/06\/410SRoxboro_ChickenBox_1965.jpg” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ \/][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n Before the Chicken Hut was displaced by Highway 147, the storefront was on Roxboro Road, a few miles north of their current location. It was called the Chicken Box until 1975. This is a photo of their original restaurant was taken at 410 Roxboro Road. (Photo courtesy of North Carolina Collection and Durham County Library )<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”Row” _builder_version=”3.0.47″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”1_4″][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Testimonial” author=”Peggy Tapp” background_layout=”light” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ url_new_window=”off” quote_icon=”on” use_background_color=”on” quote_icon_background_color=”#f5f5f5″ text_orientation=”left” border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n Some 50 years since they were forced to move, the Tapps are confident that Chicken Hut will continue for years to come. They trust their community and they trust God. Anyone who walks in the door can get a hot lunch, regardless of whether or not they can pay full price, or \u201ceven if you just have a nickel in your pocket,\u201d says Peggy.<\/p>\n \u201cYou give a little and you get a little. That\u2019s just how it is,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n And, of course, it doesn\u2019t hurt to have great chicken. Their secret family recipe, their own ratio of spice to flour, double fried, gives customers the satisfying crunch they are looking for.<\/p>\n Driving through southern Durham, there is no shortage of fried chicken options, but none have garnered Chicken Hut\u2019s loyal following, the kind it take 60 years to build.<\/p>\n \u201cEven in college, I majored in business management because I knew I was going to come and pursue taking over the restaurant,\u201d says Tre, 39. \u201cSo I really can’t imagine doing anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n Tre stepped in after college to oversee daily operations in 2000, and now his two daughters, the third generation of Tapps at Chicken Hut, are growing up around the kitchen just like he did.<\/p>\n Leah and Jade Tapp watch videos and giggle behind the counter, as their grandmother and the rest of the Chicken Hut staff scramble to get ready for the impending lunch rush. They say one day, they too will take over the family business.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”Row” _builder_version=”3.0.47″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”1_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n In this photo, Leah Tapp, 8, and Jade Tapp, 9, eat lunch at the restaurant that their father owns with their grandmother. The girls say they are going to take over the family business one day. (Maggie Blunk Miller\/NextGenRadio)<\/em><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_4″][et_pb_image admin_label=”Image” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ src=”https:\/\/wunc2017.nextgenradio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/06\/MaggieBlunkMiller003.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”off” url_new_window=”off” use_overlay=”off” sticky=”off” align=”left” always_center_on_mobile=”on” border_style=”solid” force_fullwidth=”off” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”Section” fullwidth=”on” specialty=”off” parallax_method=”off” padding_mobile=”off” disabled=”off” disabled_on=”off|off|” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ global_module=”376″][et_pb_fullwidth_image admin_label=”Fullwidth Image: Divider” global_parent=”376″ src=”https:\/\/wunc2017.nextgenradio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/06\/WUNC_divider_web2.gif” show_in_lightbox=”off” url_new_window=”off” use_overlay=”off” animation=”off” border_style=”solid” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ \/][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” fullwidth=”off” background_color=”#0073ae” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ global_module=”375″][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” global_parent=”375″ background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_image admin_label=”Image: site logo” global_parent=”375″ _builder_version=”3.0.51″ show_in_lightbox=”off” url=”http:\/\/wunc.org\/” url_new_window=”on” use_overlay=”off” sticky=”off” align=”left” always_center_on_mobile=”on” border_style=”solid” force_fullwidth=”off” src=”https:\/\/wunc2017.nextgenradio.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/06\/nextgen_logo_web2.png” animation=”off” \/][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” global_parent=”375″ background_layout=”dark” text_orientation=”center” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n We are finding, coaching and training public media’s next generation. This #nextgenradio<\/strong><\/a> project is created in partnership with North Carolina Public Radio WUNC. Learn more about Next Generation Radio and upcoming programs<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” global_parent=”375″ background_layout=”dark” text_orientation=”center” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_social_media_follow admin_label=”Social Media Follow” global_parent=”375″ _builder_version=”3.0.51″ link_shape=”rounded_rectangle” url_new_window=”on” follow_button=”off” background_layout=”dark”]<\/p>\n [et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”facebook” skype_action=”call” url=”https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/officialnextgenerationradio\/” bg_color=”##52BDEC”]Facebook [\/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”twitter” skype_action=”call” url=”https:\/\/twitter.com\/nextgenradio” bg_color=”#00aced”]Twitter [\/et_pb_social_media_follow_network]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_social_media_follow][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The phone rings for the the fourth or fifth time in so many minutes inside a soul food joint in Durham, North Carolina. The place looks more like an accountant’s office than a restaurant. \u201cChicken Hut,\u201d answers matriarch Peggy Tapp. \u201cYes ma\u2019am, we are.\u201d The Chicken Hut has opened and closed locations and faced family […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"coauthors":[27],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wunc2017.nextgenradio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/191"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wunc2017.nextgenradio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wunc2017.nextgenradio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wunc2017.nextgenradio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wunc2017.nextgenradio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wunc2017.nextgenradio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":792,"href":"https:\/\/wunc2017.nextgenradio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/191\/revisions\/792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wunc2017.nextgenradio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wunc2017.nextgenradio.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}You have to be a fighter and I am a fighter, and his daddy was a fighter, and I think he is going to be a fighter.<\/h1>\n
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