About kente kitchen

My name is Ramona Young, and I am passionate about culinary excellence and community empowerment. As a seasoned caterer, I've had the pleasure of delighting palates with an array of delectable dishes, each crafted with precision and imbued with the rich flavors of West African cuisine.

After living in Charlotte for 20 years, I moved back to Asheville and found something missing in this Foodtopia. There were no West African restaurants or grocery stores, and none of the current grocery stores offered any of the West African ingredients in their international aisles. I would travel to Charlotte, Greensboro, or Atlanta to purchase meals and ingredients needed to cook my favorite foods. After a year of working at an unhappy job, I decided to leave, enroll in AB-Tech’s Entrepreneurial Associates program, and start my business cooking and sharing this passion for West African food with Asheville and beyond.

My journey in the culinary world took a transformative turn in 2014 when I founded Kente Kitchen as a food vendor at the Goombay Festival in Asheville, NC. A culinary venture dedicated to celebrating the vibrant culinary traditions of West Africa, taught to me by my late fiancé’s mother, sisters, aunties, and the Liberian community in Charlotte, NC. Beyond simply satisfying appetites, I've made it my mission to educate and nourish communities, mainly focusing on children, by imparting the knowledge of healthy eating habits.