EDGECOME COUNTY, N.C. — North Carolina's small town populations are on the decline as more and more people flock to big cities in our state.
Yalem Kiros, the owner of NABS Cafe and Deli, left Raleigh for Rocky Mount in 2013 when there wasn't a single coffee shop in its downtown area. After running a restaurant in Raleigh with her husband for years, she was ready for the change of pace and found she likes knowing her customers and their stories.
“The good thing about this is everybody knows you and you know everybody,” Kiros said. “I love being here and serving and greeting and making for my customers. It's like serving people in your house.”
She knows business downtown still hasn't bounced back to pre-pandemic levels, but she's not one to give up on a dream easily and her hope is to see Rocky Mount revitalized to its former glory days when tobacco and cotton were king in the area.
“When you start something somewhere, you don't want to leave it, you want to see it grow. I want the downtown to be really up and coming,” Kiros said. “We've been here now nine or 10 years in Rocky Mount, and I see the potential. It's such a beautiful city.”
She grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, with a population of over 4 million – in comparison, all of Wake County barely tops 1 million. That experience left her wondering why anyone wants to live near big cities.
“It's OK to leave your home, but when you come back, you're going to appreciate this,” Kiros said. “It is nice to be in a small town. I get to see people who have never left for generations and I look at myself — I left home since I was 4, 5 and been place to place.”
The one problem she's consistently seen in the past 10 years of living in a rural area is the lack of retention for young people. She said cities have appeal for young people, but in a few years they'll be wishing for the quiet streets of towns like Rocky Mount, which are close enough for a weekend trip, but have none of the traffic and clutter of a booming city.
“Last time I checked, I think there are more older people than there are younger people, and of course I think that's a reflection of the whole planet right now,” Kiros said. “All the kids that grow up here, they want to be near big cities. I always tell them, I say, 'You don't know what you have here.'”
