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Welcome to the Sitar India Palace

When you’re hungry, and feeling the need for the best indian cuisine in the Durham, NC, and surrounding areas, look no further than Sitar India Palace! We offer the food you want, the prices you’re looking for and the customer service that will keep you coming back time and again.

Our specialty is indian cuisine and we pride ourselves in making your food fast and fresh when you order it. From authentic dished to indian deserts, we have the dining experience you crave. In addition, please ask us about our catering services and banquet facilities. Stop in for our daily lunch buffet!

We can accommodate larger parties in our dining area, with advanced notice, or can package up your meal to go.Our take-out orders come with all the fixings, and we can even supply you with drinks and desserts! For a meal at home, or a group get-together, Sitar India Palace has the service and quality you deserve.

Featured Article in The Herald Sun

Sitar India Palace owners optimistic about future

DURHAM -- On weekend nights, Sitar India Palace is full -- not only with customers but also with the fragrance of its spices, the warmth and energy of its owners and the eagerness of customers hungry for a serving of the popular chicken tikka masala. 
 
But you'd never know it driving by.
 
The Indian restaurant is the only business still open in Regency Plaza in the South Square area, a formerly vibrant center that's now just a ghostly, desert-like parking lot flanked by a row of empty stores waiting for the wrecking ball.
 
The good news for Sitar is the center is getting a complete makeover starting this summer. Two Charlotte developers purchased Regency last year and are planning to build a mix of apartments, shops and offices catering to the nearby university crowd. Demolition could begin as soon as July.
 
The bad news -- or not, depending on how you look at it -- is that because Sitar will remain open at the center and be part of the new University Marketplace, it will have to sit through 12-18 months of construction all around the business.
 
Most of the center will be razed and about 45,000 square feet of the existing 120,000-square-foot space will remain. Hawthorne Retail Partners, one of two Charlotte developers working on the property, has signed an Earth Fare-like grocer called Poppies from western North Carolina as the anchor.
 
Sitar's owners hammered out an agreement with Hawthorne for another 10-year lease for the same rent, confident the restaurant will survive the center's growing pains.
 
"When people heard about the new development, they wanted to know where we're going. And we said, 'No, we're not moving,'" co-owner P.C. Davis said. "This is a destination restaurant. People know we are here."
 
Davis and his wife, Linda, own the restaurant together with Davis' brother, P.C. Anthony, and his wife, Theresa.
 
The Davis couples originally had separate restaurants in the New York-New Jersey area. They relocated south for their children and opened Sitar, located at 3117-D Shannon Road, in 1998.
 
Back then, Regency was still a thriving center that fed off the traffic from South Square Mall.
 
Families would go to the mall on weekends to shop at Hudson Belk, JC Penney, Gap and The Limited. Afterward, they could hop across Shannon Road to Regency for a grocery run at Kroger, pick up a movie at Blockbuster and maybe stop in Sitar for a bite to eat.
 
But in 2002, The Streets at Southpoint opened near the N.C. 54 exit off Interstate 40 and immediately sucked out the business going to South Square.
 
The old mall closed. In 2004, Kroger also folded as the longtime anchor. The center, originally built in the mid-1980s, has been sputtering along ever since.
 
But not Sitar. The 40-seat restaurant has been consistently drawing customers through thick and thin, its owners said proudly.
 
Whereas other businesses in Regency foundered because of poor traffic, Sitar was able to hold steady with lunch and dinner buffets that consistently deliver favorites like the chicken tikka masala while delighting customers with new dishes created by chef Suren Gomes. About half the buffet dishes are not actually on the menu, Davis said.
 
The Davises compare Gomes to a student of the sitar, the traditional Indian instrument that, as the saying goes, takes a lifetime to master. Gomes, originally from Saudi Arabia, has been a chef for 35 years. He has a real passion for cooking, they said, and even concocts Chinese-Indian fusions every now and then. An example is a breaded cauliflower dish with sweet and sour sauce.
 
And if your favorite Gomes dish isn't on the menu? "If anyone wants any dish, we'll cook it for them," P.C. Davis said.
 
Weekday crowds average 80 for lunch and 80 for dinner. The weekends, for which Gomes prepares specialty dishes, average 250-300 dinners on Friday and Saturday nights.
 
The business also participates at numerous community food events, like the World Beer Festival every spring and fall, and has racked up a number of catering deals.
 
Sitar started catering for Duke University soon after opening and is now at the Great Hall every Sunday. Its food is also available at Durham Academy on Wednesdays and UNC's Lenoir Dining Hall Tuesdays and Thursdays. The restaurant also is negotiating a contract for Durham Technical Community College.
 
The catering side of the business not only brings in extra income but also introduces more potential customers to Sitar's South Indian cuisine.
 
That's not to say that on a weekend night, you can't spot the die-hards who've been coming since the beginning.
 
Hank and Leila Jackson discovered the restaurant nearly 10 years ago. They found the restaurant in the phone book when a craving for Indian food hit. They liked the food and kept coming back. Now, they return with a 2-year-old daughter, Julia, in tow.
 
Sitar is a must-have for Martin Blazevich and Kathleen Goodhand, who live in north Durham. They drive past another Indian restaurant to get to Sitar for the vegetarian dishes alone.
 
Like other customers, they seem just as confident as the owners for the restaurant's future.
 
"I really think they'll pull through," said Goodhand. "I think we'll walk around debris to come in here if we have to." 

• Takeout Available • Full Service Catering •
• Private Party Room • Gift Certificates •
• Party Orders • 2 Locations •