Cherece Norris laughs into the phone, though there remains a hint of something else in her voice.

“Everybody keeps calling and saying they’re waiting for the ‘Ha-ha, I was only joking!’ I wish I was…”

Cherece, along with her husband Eric and their sons, Eric and Brent, run two businesses in Crescent City: Norris Family Kitchen and the Park City Superette. The restaurant began in the tiny building in front of the Superette at the corner of Howland Hill and Elk Valley but quickly became too popular — with their selection of “smash” burgers and Indian tacos — for the location. Two years ago, Cherece moved her restaurant into town, along the 101 corridor, to both better serve her expanding clientele and catch some of the tourist dollars that blow along the highway.

Her son Eric and his wife run the Superette, and have made it a hub in the marginal mixed-use neighborhood on the edge of town, providing the usual selection of small-store fare, as well as some fresh produce and prepared food. Outside the front door is a cabinet in which donated food stuffs are left for the local homeless population to take, free of charge.

If you drive down Elk Valley, past the Superette, the first street you come to on the right is Norris. The short, tree-lined street runs past the Elk Valley Rancheria’s education building and disappears in a knot of houses belonging to tribal members. The street’s name isn’t a coincidence. The Norris family has been part of the Rancheria for decades.

All of which helps explain the surprise in the community after Cherece posted on Facebook a couple of weeks back that both the restaurant and the market would be closing, and all eight members of her immediate family would be leaving Del Norte.

From Cherece’s post: “Although rumors may circulate, the primary reasons for this decision are the lack of medical, dental, and animal care services, as well as a limited dating pool and insufficient customer base to sustain both our businesses.”

Many in the community, including myself, were stunned by this news. For me, it wasn’t simply because the store closest to my house was closing, or that I was losing the most reliable source of Indian tacos — there seemed a deeper issue here, beyond the merely economic.

Though, to be clear, the economic concerns were huge. When Elk Valley Casino relocated, the Superette took a hit, Cherece says. When they opened the mini-mart/gas station, “it was final,” she adds. 

Though Norris Family Kitchen has fared better, it’s still been difficult. It’s the economics of scale, Cherece says. She’s kept a spreadsheet of all the places in Del Norte where you can get food. There are 51 such places, she tells me.

“Perlita’s, Aztec, the golf course, anyplace you can get food. And that’s not counting the food trucks or the people who are selling off of Facebook.” There simply isn’t enough disposable income around in the community to sustain a full-service, indoor eatery. “The sad thing: food is our heart. We don’t want to leave, but we’re forced to. Rent is going up for everybody, no one can afford to eat out after they pay rent.”

As with most things, the pandemic didn’t help. Business dropped by about 60 precent, and has stayed that way ever since. Chipotle coming in was a shock of a different kind. Though not the existential threat a chain might represent to a family-owned restaurant, the opening was a temporary hit, and only served to show how close to the bone local restaurants are forced to live.

“We don’t have credit cards, we don’t have lenders, we don’t have any of that,” Cherece says. “Sadly, I think more family businesses will die. I feel like we’re losing a lot here. There’s going to be growth, but it’s going to be growth for people who have the money.”

Lack of economic opportunity is only one issue for Cherece and her family. In 2023, her father passed; last year, she and her husband moved in with her mother to care for her. “I’ve been with her since May and she’s been through three doctors. That’s not OK. Where we’re going, they actually have geriatric doctors.”

Cherece and her family weighed all the options they could when they decided to find a new home. Her daughter-in-law survived the Paradise Fire, so a community that wasn’t on the verge of burning down every summer was an important consideration, as was care for her mother, 24-hour veterinary care, and access to higher education.

“We just went process of elimination, and Michigan had everything. And honestly, I know it sounds crazy, but our son loves Notre Dame!”

So, come March, the Norris Family, sans Kitchen, will be moving to Kalamazoo. One son plans to buy a house, the other a food truck. And there are 10 universities in the region. “And college food is what we cook,” Cherece laughs. She’s planning to perhaps cater to banquets, events, parties. At least someone will get a steady supply of Indian tacos.

Cherece and family have left Del Norte before, but last time it was personal. You can read the tale in her section of the Del Norte anthology, Come To The Edge, edited by Ruth Rhodes. In it, Cherece recounts leaving Del Norte because her son was being bullied, and what factors — a parent’s illness — brought her and her family back.

This time, the Norris’ leaving feels more structural than personal, as if the very infrastructure necessary to sustain life is no longer readily available here. That’s what struck me when I saw Cherece’s Facebook post: What does it mean when a family — with a recognizable name and local history — who operates two businesses well and above-board, doing everything they can, cannot find the wherewithal to remain in a community? Where’s the disconnect? Who’s failed here?

It’s a question that can be voiced in just about every rural community across the country, as economic opportunity shrivels, resources dry up, demographics age and shift. What happens to these communities if they can no longer retain the very people who drive them, who run the businesses and invest in the future? While the answer to this question is multifaceted, the key takeaway is pretty bleak: this is how communities like ours die. One family, one business, at a time.  

“I want to thank this community for supporting us in every way, shape, or form,” Cherece says. She’s sitting at a table in the Norris Family Kitchen, closed for the afternoon. A new business will soon occupy the building. Outside, traffic flashes by in the January sun. “And it may have been the tribe that took us out, but without the tribe, we would have never started. When we opened, we opened so fast, we had no major equipment, so Port O’ Pints – everybody in town – called us and they’re like ‘hey, I’ve got this for ya, I’ve got that for ya…’ It was amazing. That’s why our restaurant, a lot of people will come and talk about how it looks, but the tables have come from all kinds of different places, we have equipment from all kinds of businesses in town.”

It’s this spirit of working together, of Del Nortin’ things, that has underpinned much of the success Cherece and her family have experienced. “I feel like it’s what built us,” she says.

And the Norris family isn’t severing all ties to Del Norte. There’s family here, tribal memberships, and they’re keeping the property at Howland Hill and Elk Valley Road. Mission Possible has plans to rent the building that housed the Superette and expand the homeless services they already offer out of the tiny building in the parking lot.

“I will be back,” Cherece tells me. “I promised my mother I’d come spread her ashes with my sister and my dad, so I will be back. I just hope Crescent City is still standing.”