ORLANDO, Fla. — We find Nick Aiken Jr. standing at the stove in a tiny kitchen of his family’s restaurant. He’s there stirring the pots of greens, potatoes, and banana pudding as his team of cooks pull freshly made yams from the oven.

“Nikki’s Place” in Parramore is named after Aiken’s daughter.

Aiken said the work can be hot and quick. The dining room is bustling with a hungry lunch crowd.

The menu is mostly untouched since Roseamay Jones opened a restaurant within the same walls in 1952. Some years later, Jones died and Aiken and his wife decided to keep the dining tradition going.

“(It’s) been here a long time,” he said.

It’ll be 20 years in March since the restaurant opened. Aiken started working in the diner washing dishes, cleaning the floors, and learning how to cook.

“I was going to school one day and she said, ‘Young man, looks like you need a job,’” Aiken said. “I was looking of course, and I started working and said, ‘Ms. Rose, are you going to pay and feed me too?’ (She said) ‘If you do a good job,’’ and I’m still here.”

Thriving, Yet Divided Community

Nikki’s Place gives a glimpse into the window of what Parramore once was — a thriving, yet divided community.

“Parramore was segregated,” said Ralph Armstead, a Parramore native. “At that point in time we would stay within our community, and you never did venture onto the other side.”

Parramore was established in the late 1800s, becoming a historically black area of Orlando.

“Division Avenue is named Division Avenue, because it was the dividing line between white Orlando and black Orlando,” said Elizabeth Thompson, Executive Director of Wells’ Built Museum of African American History and Culture.

Segregation in the early 20th century was more than just a way of life.

“It was the law for a long time,” Thompson said. “There were laws on the books that required a separation between African Americans and white Americans.”

Parramore had grown by the 20th century to have thriving black-owned businesses, including a pharmacy, convenience stores, a community hangout called the “Dixie Doodle,” as well as the renowned South Street Casino.

That’s where Aiken started sweeping floors before Rose’s restaurant.

“It was wonderful because I got to see the shows for free, then I’d clean up afterwards, swept the floors,” Aiken said.

The shows included some of the most famous black entertainers of the time, including B.B. King, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, and James Brown.

“Have you ever seen a James Brown performance?” Ralph Armstead exclaimed, recalling those weekend nights like they were yesterday. “The gyrations and energy and dancing… he electrified an audience.”

Their shows often drew big crowds.

“If, as an African American artist, you wanted to perform for an African American audience you had to do that in the black community, and that was one of the benefits the South Street Casino would provide,” Thompson said.

A black physician named William Monroe Wells opened the South Street Casino shortly after he opened the Wells’ Built Hotel in 1929.

“It was the first, and for a long time, the only hotel in Orlando that would rent rooms to African Americans,” Thompson said.

Desegregation and Development

For years that was simply the way of life. Then came the 1960s and the days of desegregation and development.

“The first major changes came when Disney came into existence and then the impact when you had Interstate 4 come in, and actually through the community and dislocating and relocating a lot of people,” Armstead said. “Development has made an impact.”

“The area was loaded with people moving, but then all of a sudden when it started changing, people started spreading out a little more and businesses started closing,” Aiken said.

It seemed to be the end of Parramore. Over time, the area has stood in the shadows of change, but it is now emerging from those shadows.

“We’re on a big verge of it coming back very strong,” said Walter Hawkins, the city of Orlando’s Director of Urban Development.

“We’ve recently put a lot of emphasis on affordable housing and market rate housing,” Hawkins said.

The city says millions of dollars are being spent to help Parramore become a renewed thriving community.

There are the new homes in Parramore hosting Orlando City Soccer and the Orlando Magic.

Hawkins said in addition to new retail, there are multiple affordable housing projects in the works.

“In the past we lost a population and got down to about 5,000 individuals in the communities, and we’ll get back up to about 10,000, 12,000 or 15,000 people,” Hawkins said.

Those like Nick Aiken say progress is inevitable, but also say that change can happen with both the past and present preserved.

“You had people achieve and enjoy great success, African Americans and I want people to take that away, that we have as much right and entitlement to that feeling of success and pursuit of happiness and pursuit of economy and community, and we had that once, we have that now, it’s within us,” Elizabeth Thompson said.