A slew of local businesses in Downtown Durham have closed this year, and despite being in business for almost 15 years, Dorian Bolden’s Beyu Caffé was no exception. But Bolden does have something many other businesses downtown don’t have: the ownership of his building.

Bolden opened the cafe — named because of the goal of wanting people to be able to be themselves — in December 2009 and was looking to celebrate its 15th anniversary this year. This aspiration was cut short, though, when the company had to close its doors on Juneteenth earlier this year.

“Around March, that’s when I really started to be saying, ‘Okay if I’m not seeing changes relatively soon, I don’t really see this being a sustainable model’,” Bolden said.

The increased parking rates, ongoing construction and slowing of foot traffic into the shop during the week contributed to Bolden’s decision to ultimately close the cafe. These factors weren’t exclusive to Bolden but have also been felt across the city.

Many downtown businesses pay a living wage for their employees but monthly parking fees can take a big chunk out of hourly employee’s paychecks, making it difficult to attract the best workers, according to Nicole J. Thompson, Downtown Durham, Inc. President and CEO.

Downtown Durham, Inc. notes that while 17 businesses in Durham have closed this year, 37 have opened — resulting in a net gain for the city — but that doesn’t diminish the loss of numerous downtown icons, including Beyu Caffé.

“We continue to see more businesses open than close downtown, but every local business that closes represents the loss of a critical piece of the fabric of the downtown community,” Thompson said.

Despite his loss of business, though, Bolden wasn’t completely disparaged at closing his doors downtown because he knew what was possible.

Beyu Caffé has three other locations — two located in the RDU airport and one on Duke University’s campus — has bags of coffee beans available for retail at more than 30 grocery stores across the Triangle and Bolden owns the building the business was formerly in, giving him the ability to do more.

Bolden was inspired to purchase the building in 2014 after he saw Scott Harmon, owner of Center Studio Architecture, purchase the building for his space. Soon after, others started doing the same thing, which Bolden believes is a reason other businesses are able to keep pushing through the economic issues of downtown.

“We all kind of fed off each other,” Bolden said. “You know seeing that we all really care about downtown and we saw ourselves wanting to be there for a longer time, so we saw ourselves wanting to invest in the building.”

The rationale behind buying the building was its potential to allow Bolden to build wealth. He understood that owning a small business didn’t always lend a hand to a steady income, so the building was his way of creating a retirement fund for himself and his family — foreshadowing what he wants to do next.

“Durham is still home and Durham is still special to us,” Bolden said. “So that’s the goal, that we can find a new tenant to come in and still add value to Durham.”

Downtown Durham is shifting in a demographic sense with the share of the population that is white growing 1.4 percentage points from 2010 to 2022. Bolden recognizes this fact and hopes that there will be a new sense of embracing the existing Black culture in Durham with the emerging white culture.

He hopes there is an intention behind reinvigorating the fabric of “coolness” in Durham that existed when he first opened his business.

“That’s what made Durham so cool and this hodgepodge of where everyone wanted to be and be like Durham,” he said.

Bolden plans to announce who will come into his space downtown soon. He and his partners have identified someone who they hope will be that spark they’re looking for, creating the stepping stone to continue building the diverse, cool, unique place that Durham was, is and can be.