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The Wake County Nominations Ballot for “Best of the Triangle 2025” is live!
Nominations close on February 28th, so make sure to nominate your local favorites before it’s too late!

Hi! Happy weekend.

Hope you and yours are having a sweet day. 

I’m over-relying on the word a bit, but—here are some sweet reads for the weekend. In Raleigh, Nation Hahn wrote about dual new spots from the Trophy team: Bend Bar and the State of Beer bottle shop, both on Morgan Street. As Nation puts it, the easygoing spaces reflect larger trends in the city, as a generation of Raleighites who came of age in the mid-aughts turns a page and finds new neighborhood haunts. 

But the piece is more than a bar review, it’s also a moving essay about love, time, and medium-sized-cities—read it all here. 

You’ve maybe read about Afters Dessert Bar by now, but have you read about Durham’s [sweetest] dessert influencers? When Ae Bügger, now 27, moved to Durham in 2021 to care for their grandmother, Margaret Teta, now 92, the pair discovered that they still have a big passion in common: desserts. Thus was born the shared Instagram account where they document the treats they try and time they spend together. 

And if you’re looking for events to take your crush to or things to do this week, here’s this week’s INDY Selects event picks and, from last week, ways to recognize Black History Month in the Triangle. 

Thank you for reading! Just a few more things to highlight, down below.

Ae Bügger records their grandmother, Margaret Teta, in front of Fonda Lupita. The grandma & grandchild duo frequent local establishments and post their dessert findings on the @grandsweets.nc Instagram. Photo by Angelica Edwards.

elsewhere in the culture section

This week was the tenth anniversary of the murders of three Muslim American students—Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha—in Chapel Hill. The three were murdered by an Islamaphobic neighbor in 2010 and have a story that every person in the Triangle (new resident and transplant alike) should know about. Here’s a story I wrote last year on a documentary about their families’ fight to designate the murders as a hate crime (not surprisingly, this is a hard feat in North Carolina) and there lots of other resources from which to learn about their lives. 

Cherry blossom season goes big at Duke Gardens in Durham. This year, the gardens and its blossoms are going to see a pretty big disruption as Duke undertakes a big renovation of the 55-acre garden (did you know it was 55 acres? I didn’t!)—Lena Geller has the scoop on how to navigate construction season. 

From the archives, here are a few stories about romance and relationships: A couple who took to the Bull City subreddit to find witnesses for their wedding. This story from 2016, when online dating was still a novelty, feels like it was a million years ago. Dream job: Chatting with the former New York Times wedding announcement writer, who lives in Raleigh. Dating with herpes. Unconventional local spots to tie the knot.

And ICYMI: The Durham Symphony Orchestra’s special program honoring the last words of the unarmed. (This concert is tonight, and is sold out.) Pick up a copy of Nuevo South. Talking with poet Bridget Bell about poetry and postpartum depression. 

— Sarah Edwards —
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Sarah Edwards is culture editor of the INDY, covering cultural institutions and the arts in the Triangle. She joined the staff in 2019 and assumed her current role in 2020.