Afters Dessert Bar Makes for a Sweet Stop

In the kitchen of Afters Dessert Bar, there’s a whiteboard with a neatly bulleted to-do list. The first item reads “Ass Red Velvet.”

The abbreviation’s meaning becomes clear as Stephen Kennedy, who owns Afters with his wife Lindsey, begins to punch circles from a large rectangle of cake and build them up, layer by layer, inside transparent acetate rings. “Ass,” it turns out, means “assemble.” It’s the kind of playful shorthand that makes sense in a kitchen where a stone mortar and pestle is painted with a dog’s face.

The Kennedys brought Afters to a cozy brick-walled space in Brightleaf Square in December. The location is a second act for the couple, who from May 2020 to May 2022 operated the dessert shop from a Durham Food Hall stall. That venture ended when, like several other vendors, they opted not to renew their lease, citing untenable rent and management issues.

The process of opening their Brightleaf space proved to be drawn out. After leaving the food hall, the couple faced months of negotiations over the lease. Construction delays and a back injury that sidelined Stephen pushed their planned opening further. Now, two months after opening their doors, they’re finally finding their rhythm.

Afters is still in its soft opening phase. The coffee station isn’t set up yet, and they’re keeping limited hours—10 am to 3 pm, Tuesday through Sunday. But even in this nascent stage, the space has a strong sense of itself, from the molded chocolates Stephen calls “the mascots” (rainbows, unicorns, robots, and dinosaurs, displayed under a cloche dome) to the vintage pharmacy artifacts that nod to Lindsey’s profession as a psychiatric pharmacist.

I ask Stephen—who handles everything in the kitchen, while Lindsey manages the shop design and operational logistics—what he plans to do with the remnants of the red velvet sheet cake he’s working on, now a lacy network of holes. He tells me he’ll dehydrate the scraps into crunchy crumbs for garnish.

“Someday I would like to have something like Time Out’s ‘bucket of bones,’” he says, referencing the venerated Chapel Hill diner’s $1 bucket of fried chicken bones with bits of meat still clinging to them, “but with cake scraps.”

Stephen’s pastry career spans over two decades, with stints at some of the Triangle’s most esteemed restaurants, including Bin 54, Pizzeria Toro, and the now-closed Cypress on the Hill and Foursquare, among others. His fine dining background shows in the precision of his work, but there’s a playful irreverence to his creations that keeps them approachable. The menu at Afters is divided into “Befores” and “Afters”—a nod to the British term for desserts. The “Befores” include gluten-free scones in flavors like cacio e pepe and brown sugar ham, while the “Afters” range from chocolate chip cookies and chocolate boxes to single-serving coffee cakes, caramel brownies, and chocolate crémeux.

The chocolate chip cookies are a signature item. Small and square-shaped, they’re studded with what the Kennedys call “thunks”—house-made chocolate chips made by tempering Colombian chocolate and slicing it into pieces with a 5-wheel pastry cutter.

“You can’t really find high-quality chocolate chips,” he says. 

For those ordering something from the dessert case to enjoy on-site—there are three armchairs and five bar stools—Stephen plates desserts with added touches: the chocolate crémeux arrives with dehydrated raspberry sugar, delicate milk dots set with agar, and shaved white chocolate; the caramel brownie gets a scattering of candied peanuts; the coffee cake comes with a quenelle of Ceylon whipped cream. 

A durable dessert space

Lindsey, who still works full-time at UNC Hospitals, arrives midway through my visit. 

“I don’t know if Steph told you, but I have a thing called ‘time blindness,’” she says. She’s dressed in a yellow shirt, a patterned scarf, and rectangular glasses with warm beige frames and a beaded strap.

The historic walls and floors of Brightleaf Square hold particular significance for Lindsey, who grew up in Henderson and spent summers priming tobacco on her grandparents’ farm. She remembers visiting the complex as a child in the 1980s, not long after it had been transformed from tobacco warehouses into mixed-use space.  

Lindsey chose durable design elements that honor the building’s industrial roots, from Art Deco brackets that support the bar to antique French factory lights that hang overhead. Even the cans of milk she sourced from a Japanese grocery store in Cary reflect a commitment to sturdiness—their metal so thick that you can’t flex the can by pressing with your finger.

“I’m always trying to look for things that give that sturdy vibe,” she says.

This theme extends to the broken Hobart mixer displayed prominently on the counter, a relic from their food hall days. Its paddle and dough hook attachments sit in the window, wrapped in artificial leaves and twinkling battery-powered lights. While the couple doesn’t say this outright, it’s hard not to see it as a symbol of resilience after their challenging start at the food hall.

While many Durham businesses lean heavily on bull imagery, Afters pays homage to the city’s less-used nickname—the City of Medicine. The dessert case is actually a medication fridge salvaged from a Walgreens closing sale. 

From the same sale, the couple acquired cabinets with tall drawers that once held prescription bottles. While cleaning them out, Lindsey found two tablets—Xanax and Plavix—which she framed in ornate gold, like some owners might frame their first dollar bill.

For Lindsey, the pharmacy touches reflect both her present and past. Having grown up working in her father’s pharmacy, she and Stephen hope Afters can provide their two children with the same experience that shaped her—learning the value of community connection and hard work in a family business.

Between pointing out design elements and explaining her vision for the space, Lindsey keeps glancing at the dessert case. Her admiration for Stephen’s desserts hasn’t waned in their 15 years of marriage. 

“I’ll watch him bake and think, ‘Okay, well, this makes sense,’” she says. “But then I’ll taste it and wonder, ‘When did you perform the spell on this?’”

She’s adamant about keeping the coffee program simple: no espresso drinks, just quality drip coffee. 

“We can’t turn this into a coffee place,” she says. “Then the desserts become an afterthought.”

“Is she talking about fika yet?” Stephen interjects, from the kitchen. Earlier, he’d told me she would bring it up—and now, at his prompting, she explains the concept: a Swedish tradition of taking a break with coffee and a sweet treat.

“Swedish desserts aren’t saccharine,” Lindsey says. “They’re balanced, not overwhelming. That’s what we’re going for.”

more sweet stops in the triangle

But in a culture where afternoon treat breaks aren’t ingrained, the challenge is making the concept stick. While I’m at Afters, midday on a Thursday, a student wanders in, explaining that her laptop “blue screened out” while she was working elsewhere in the building. The forced break had brought her to Afters for a sweet treat—an inadvertent American version of fika, where dessert comes not from cultural tradition but from technological failure.

Afters’ business model is divided into thirds: walk-in service, custom orders, and wholesale to restaurants. Stephen is currently supplying desserts to The Durham Hotel, and the couple plans to expand their wholesale operations. In a space that seats only eight, space for walk-in traffic is limited. The trade-off for visibility and seating at the food hall is a more intimate, curated experience here.

As with any small business in 2025, they’re still working out the kinks.

“Inventory continues to be problematic,” Lindsey says. Just that morning, Stephen had called his regular distributor about eggs. Upon hearing the new prices, he opted for a Costco run. 

Lindsey isn’t too phased, though: “My whole life I have dealt with fluctuating medication prices and thinking about inventory on the shelves and moving that inventory out,” she says. “It’s really not any different if it’s eggs or chocolate.”

“I think maybe the core of our love for each other [is that] we both have to be well-versed in measurements and conversions.”

Lindsey and Stephen’s partnership is a study in complementary skills. 

“I think maybe the core of our love for each other [is that] we both have to be well-versed in measurements and conversions,” Lindsey says. 

She calls Stephen over and starts quizzing him. “How much does a large egg weigh?” she asks. “54 grams,” he replies. “How about the yolk of a large egg?” “20 grams.” 

Lindsey beams. 

“I sometimes like to call myself the joy bringer, and Steph the joy maker,” she says, then grows uncharacteristically sheepish. “Maybe you should leave that out of the article. I feel like we sound a little pretentious. Like, ‘we’re such good people.’”

But the description fits. Stephen’s desserts are meticulously crafted, and Lindsey’s quirky touches make the space feel warm and intentional. In a rapidly changing Durham, where national chains and quick-service concepts make it easy to put a fine point to a brand—an ice-cream shop, a late-night cookie shop—Afters stands apart.

A dessert shop that honors Durham’s medical legacy while seeking to emulate a Swedish afternoon tradition? It’s hard to categorize, but certainly nothing here is an afterthought.

Follow Staff Writer Lena Geller on X or send an email to lgeller@indyweek.com. Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com

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