The Historic South Shore Cultural Center Gets a New Restaurant Full of Soul

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A former country club on Lake Michigan that prohibited Black and Jewish people from becoming members is now home to NAFSI, a restaurant that serves soul food and is owned by a Black entrepreneur and run by a Black chef.

“It feels purposeful,” says Donnell Digby, the owner of NAFSI, of setting up the restaurant in the once exclusive space. “And that’s what drives us.”

NAFSI is located in the South Shore Cultural Center, which was once the South Shore Country Club. The club served as a sportsman’s paradise on the South Side of Chicago for the city’s white citizens from the early twentieth century until the 1970s, when it closed – in large part because of its refusal to accept Black Chicagoans, who then made up the majority of the surrounding South Shore neighborhood. The Chicago Park District purchased it and was pressured by community groups into retaining and restoring the stately 1916 building as a “palace for the people” that would host arts and cultural events and organizations.

Digby’s parents lived in South Shore – he caddied at the golf course surrounding the Cultural Center through high school – and he still lives there today. When the Park district put out calls for an entrepreneur to open a restaurant in the building, “I felt it was my duty to apply,” he says.

He partnered with the team behind the acclaimed Bronzeville Winery and met Dondee Robinson, who had opened Bronzeville Winery as a sous chef and was now ready to head up his own restaurant.

“The kid has such great talent,” Bronzeville Winery executive chef Lamar Moore told WTTW about Robinson in 2022. “A rich spirit, and I wanted to work with him to get him to the next level, and also do some fun culinary stuff on the South Side of Chicago. He has an understanding of the restaurant and the neighborhood.”

Indeed, Robinson is a native of the South Side like Digby – he was born a little more than a mile away from the South Shore Cultural Center at Jackson Park Hospital. His first job in the culinary industry was at another country club, in the south suburb of Olympia Fields, and his years working at the Drake Hotel will presumably serve him well at NAFSI, given the weddings and other events hosted at the Cultural Center. “I feel like the prince that came back to finally get his throne,” says Robinson.

In some ways, Digby and Robinson are hoping to replicate the success of Bronzeville Winery, which brought higher-end destination dining to a historically disinvested neighborhood lacking in such options.

“I’ve always wanted more food options in our community,” says Digby. “So I gave Dondee carte blanche to be creative, but also elevate the food to where our community and [people] citywide can have the dining experience that you get on the North Side, right here where we live.”

So the menu contains upscale dishes like lobster bucatini, char-grilled oysters, and a flank steak that can be enjoyed alongside a full bar program. But there’s also more casual Southern food like fried catfish with grits, a caprese featuring fried green tomatoes, and a roasted cauliflower steak. NAFSI will also eventually be open for breakfast and brunch on the weekends and offer some pre-packaged goods for golfers or picnickers to grab before enjoying the lakeshore.

“I came up with a flat-out elevated menu that not only represents our community, but also expands the palates of our community as well,” says Robinson, noting that the soul food menu is inspired by the restaurant’s name, which means “soul” in Swahili.

Robinson’s menu contains traces not just of Moore’s influence but also the renowned chef Erick Williams, who has opened Virtue and other lauded restaurants spotlighting Southern food in Hyde Park and the South Side. (Robinson also mentions Williams’ right-hand chef Damarr Brown and Atelier’s Christian Hunter as mentors.) And, like Williams and Moore, he wants to provide mentorship and training to a new generation of Black Southsiders who might not have many opportunities to break into the culinary industry – the staff of NAFSI is all from nearby.

“You don’t really have too many Black role models like that,” he says, grouping Digby and Bronzeville Winery owners Cecilia Cuff and Eric Williams with the chefs. “So to see these role models in my community, and the fact that they gave me a chance – we have to do this for the city.”

The city of Chicago supported Digby as he renovated the space that previously held the Parrot Cage Restaurant, a project of the Washburne Culinary Institute. He received a grant from the city, which is also his leaseholder, and partnered with local designer Max Davis on the furniture that occupies both an indoor and patio space. (An additional outdoor deck is coming soon.) He and Robinson are hoping that they can prove to the city that they are worthy partners who could take over further resources, like a “state-of-the-art” kitchen upstairs at the Cultural Center that is barely being used, according to Robinson.

“In my eyes, the Cultural Center is so under-utilized,” says Digby, who has worked in real estate for years and runs other South Side businesses such as the Woodlawn, an event space that houses a Trinidadian restaurant. “I think it’s only right that we, as community partners come in, look at the space and create and build here in our community, and utilize what’s there.” 

He’s not the only one to think the Cultural Center has unrealized potential. Community members have pushed in recent years for the resumption of more of the cultural programming that was part of the original intent for the building but has fallen to the wayside in favor of private events such as weddings, in their view.

Back when the Cultural Center was still home to cherished events like the Jazz Comes Home Festival, Barack and Michelle Obama held their wedding reception at the Cultural Center. Now, the Obama Presidential Center is rising in neighboring Jackson Park in preparation for a spring 2026 opening.

“I think it will be a big driver [of business to the restaurant], and we’re ready for it,” says Digby. And if the Obamas themselves ever stop by to eat at the place where they celebrated their marriage? “Oh my goodness, I’ll put an Obama chair in the restaurant,” Digby says.