Experience, Flavor & Beauty

A Grandmother’s Café

Most mornings, Asima is here before the doors open. She is 70, a grandmother, and she runs Pineapple Sol the way she has always run her own kitchen: everyone gets fed well, and everyone gets looked after.

Much of what we serve started at her family table. The recipes she cooked for her own children and grandchildren are still the backbone of the menu, and they are why the kitchen is fully halal, with organic and gluten-free options throughout. She cooks here the way she cooks at home, so a family can sit down and let their children order anything on the menu.

Her husband Raja is 76. After his cancer treatment, their son Wali wanted his parents to have somewhere to be and something of their own to look after, so he bought the café and moved from Los Angeles to help make it work. The sourcing is Raja’s. He is the reason the chicken is antibiotic-free and halal, the eggs are cage-free, and the coffee and produce are organic.

The start was not smooth. The first months went to rebuilding, and to earning a neighborhood’s trust one breakfast at a time. Today Pineapple Sol is the #1 restaurant in Cary on TripAdvisor, out of more than 400, with over 4,000 Google reviews at 4.7 stars. There is more of Pineapple Sol coming to the Triangle soon.

For this family, food is a love language. Good food, family, connection, and a café where you are looked after by the people who own it.