Patience Ncube Brings African Cuisine and Clothing to Santa Barbara

While attending Santa Barbara City College and then studying entrepreneurship at Antioch University, Zimbabwe-born Patience Ncube didn’t need any help identifying Santa Barbara’s dearth of African cuisine and culture. To fill that void, she’s launched two enterprises to share her Bantu roots with us: the clothing, shoes, and accessory company called Bantu Crafted and Afro-Fusion Catering, which delivers, literally, the flavors of western, central, eastern, and southern Africa to our doorsteps. 

Although she grew up in Zimbabwe’s metropolitan capital of Harare, Ncube frequently visited her grandmother’s village, which was devoid of any of Western conveniences, like a refrigerator. Ncube ’s menu is a combination of the recipes that her grandmother passed down to her as well as dishes gleaned from friends in other African countries.

After teaching jobs in Zimbabwe and England, Ncube came to Santa Barbara in 2009 for more schooling, getting degrees in math, science, and economics from SBCC and then a BA and master’s from Antioch in business, leadership, and organizational management. She’s worked as an employment specialist for PathPoint since 2015. “While it was scary,” she said of her leap to California, “it was exciting because it was an opportunity to seek greener pastures.”