Downtown Durham Inc. helps minority- and women-owned companies turn business ideas into burgeoning brick-and-mortar shops through its incubator programs
By Hannah Lee | Photography by John Michael Simpson
After years of suffering from burnout in her corporate human resources job, Kristine Suh was ready to take a leap.
To do something, anything else. If only she knew what that something was. Then, in September 2025, an idea clicked. Kristine grew up surrounded by the flavors of her family’s Korean heritage and developed a love for traditional Korean dishes and other Asian foods – even when children ridiculed the lunches she brought to school. As an adult, though, she struggled to find many of those beloved snacks and sweets in local stores. So, she thought, why not open such a shop herself?
“For me, selfishly,” Kristine says with a laugh. “I wanted it.” That simple desire prompted her to test the idea through a series of pop-up markets at the likes of Queeny’s and Redhead Hemp as well as collaborations with bars like Remyʼs Lounge and Delafia, where she shared homemade Korean dishes. Each successful event gave her more confidence that an Asian convenience store could not only survive, but thrive in a more permanent capacity.
She just needed somewhere to put it.
Enter Downtown Durham Inc. and its retail incubator program, which for the past four years has served as a springboard for fledgling minority- and women-owned businesses like Kristine’s – while, just as importantly, enhancing Durham’s culture of entrepreneurship.
Retail, Set, Go
The concept, the brainchild of DDI Director of Business Engagement Tiffany Bashore, is fairly straightforward: Take an underused downtown space, renovate it into a fully equipped storefront, and hand an up-and-coming business the keys – along with the support to make the most of it. DDI did just that for the 236-square-foot space at 307 W. Main St., tucked near Thai at Main Street and across from Ninth Street Bakery, then began offering it to local businesses for up to a year at a rent-controlled rate. Owners also receive hands-on coaching, participate in a peer cohort and benefit from shared marketing support. The goal: Give entrepreneurs time to build a customer base, test their business models and, ideally, gain enough traction to move into a long-term, physical location.
So far, the model has delivered.
Kristine’s Asian convenience store, Dosirak Outpost – named for the Korean word for “lunchbox,” a nod to the childhood meals that once drew teasing from her classmates – is the fourth endeavor to occupy the space since the program began in July 2023. All three of its predecessors – Back to the South Bling, Fate & Folklore and, most recently, Ashleigh Bakes Daily – remain in business, with the latter two graduating to permanent downtown storefronts.
“Retail is hard, right?” says Heather Wilson, DDI’s director of strategic initiatives, who oversees the incubators alongside Tiffany. “We are learning alongside them and trying to be as flexible as we possibly can, because it’s to the[ir] betterment.”
And DDI has learned plenty over the past few years – enough to know that one small storefront can only go so far.
Market Forces
In February, the organization expanded its program with Market on Market, a second incubator space next to The Parlour ice cream shop on Market Street. Unlike the original location, the new space houses three businesses in separate but connected areas that range from 150 to 260 square feet.
The inaugural occupants include Be Well Co., an apothecary offering wellness products; EKO, an eco-conscious jewelry and body care company; and BLNK SPCE Designs, a maker of humorous stickers and stationery. The space also showcases artwork from the Durham Art Guild, with every piece available for purchase – a partnership that reflects DDI’s broader goal of “supporting the local creative economy as much as we want to support the local business economy,” Heather says. The three companies are slated to remain in the space through December 2026.
Kristine says she originally applied for one of Market on Market’s spaces – one of 20-some applicants DDI received – but wasn’t selected. A few months later, however, timing aligned for a different opportunity. Ashleigh Bakes Daily owner Ashleigh Ratchford informed DDI in February that she intended to vacate the incubator to move to her new location near the corner of West Main and Mangum Street. DDI quickly reached back out to Kristine. “They were big champions of what I was doing,” Kristine says. “When this became possible, it was like the ‘aha’ moment: This is the direction that my life is supposed to [take].”
Rising to the Occasion
Ashleigh knows the feeling.
She had spent nearly five years baking and selling cookies before applying to the incubator program in December 2024, eventually moving into the space in June 2025. She’d garnered notoriety and success up until that point, including partnerships with a number of restaurants, but she knew a storefront in the summertime – especially along a visible strip like Main Street – could accelerate her growth from back-of-house supply to her own standalone shop.
“It just opened up a whole other world of possibilities for me and a new customer base in general – because you get all the [foot] traffic,” Ashleigh says. “When I
signed the lease for [my current] place, there’s no way a landlord would have taken me seriously without the traction that I was able to get.”
Ashleigh’s success, in many ways, helped convince Heather and Tiffany that DDI should expand the program with Market on Market. As Durham – and downtown in particular – continues to grow, they saw the once-vacant former dance studio as a way to check two boxes at once: Give more local entrepreneurs a shot at brick-and-motor retail while satisfying residents’ growing appetite for more places to shop.
“We would love to really create these shopping districts,” Tiffany says, highlighting DDI’s vision to shape a more robust retail landscape throughout downtown, one small business at a time.
Dosirak may be one of the next to make the leap; Kristine is already investigating options for its own longterm home. For now, though, she’s enjoying the first chapter of a story she never expected to write.
“There’s a lot of fun things, I think, for us down the road,” Kristine says. “This is just the beginning.”
