Late in the afternoon on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Welton Street Cafe didn’t feel like a place that had barely survived the throes of the pandemic. It was bustling.
A quick scan of Five Points’ beloved soul food restaurant revealed a young, bearded white man seated near the plate-glass window facing the Welton Street corridor, where the light rail runs. A quartet of smartly coiffed Black women sat in a booth along the restaurant’s sunny yellow wall, laughing and passing a smartphone among them. Later, a racially diverse foursome of businessmen claimed an adjacent booth. Those gathered in the 36-year-old cafe that day reflected the nuances of the ongoing demographic shifts in the historically Black neighborhood and epitomized how Welton Street Cafe has long been committed to being a community hub, stout
