Beloved vendor will leave the Durham Food Hall this month. Here’s what’s next
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Little Barb’s Bakery will leave the Durham Food Hall at the end of May 2026.
- Owner Barbara Nigro said the bakery reached the end of its three-year lease.
- Nigro hopes the bakery will reopen in a new brick-and-mortar location by September.
A Durham bakery known for sweet cakes and protest cookies will close this month to mount a move to a space of its own.
Little Barb’s Bakery will leave the Durham Food Hall at the end of May, closing a three-year run that saw it ascend to one of the city’s most popular sweet shops.
Owner Barbara Nigro said Little Barb’s had reached the end of its three-year lease and is close to inking a new brick and mortar deal.
“My main goal was to be there for three years and then see if Little Barb’s had established itself and could fly out on its own,” Nigro said in a phone interview. “I felt like now was the time.”
Little Barb’s
Little Barb’s joined the Durham Food Hall in late 2022, replacing fellow sweet shop Afters Dessert Bar, which relocated to Brightleaf Square.
Nigro left the medical profession a year earlier to start a home bakery and signed the lease with the food hall after just one pop up in Durham.
“I had always been around baking,” Nigro said. “We’re Italian, gathering around a table sharing food is how we show love to one another.”
It worked out. Little Barb’s has been named one of the city’s best bakeries for multiple years by Durham Magazine.
“When we first started at the food hall, my whole mindset was to take it one year at a time,” Nigro said. “I was a fairly new home baker, so the first year was to gain exposure and get some recognition behind my name. I feel like we’ve done that, we went from nobody knowing us to now I’ll be stopped in the grocery store and someone will say, ‘Oh my God you’re Little Barb’s.’”
Protest cookies
Beyond the popular sweets, Little Barb’s gained attention late last year for a cookie-cake protest of ICE activity in Durham. In October, an ICE recruitment ad was shown on TVs in the Durham Food Hall, The News & Observer reported at the time. Vendors were outraged and some closed for multiple days.
The food hall said a third-party service was responsible for the ad and that it had not been approved by the owners.
In response, Nigro and Little Barb’s made cookie cakes condemning ICE in no uncertain terms, writing a message in icing. The controversy around the ad played a role in moving on, Nigro said.
“We’re pretty outspoken, and I think those types of businesses are needed,” Nigro said. “(The ad) was definitely in my mind.”
While Nigro declined to share where Little Barb’s may move, there is a timeline. Following Little Barb’s closing at the food hall on Sunday, May 31, Nigro hopes the bakery will be up and running by September in its new location.
“We’ve been successful because of each of you that allowed an inexperienced gal, with a dream, to open a bakery,” Nigro wrote on Instagram. “It’s because of y’all that we’ve celebrated 3 years of everyone’s favorite neighborhood bakery.”
