The ribbon was red, the scissors were gold and oversized, and the woman holding them has won 11 Grammy Awards. On Sunday, November 1, 2026, during Serenbe’s annual Hamlet Day celebration, Chaka Khan cut the ribbon on Chaka’s Plantbaed Café, at 11105 Serenbe Lane in Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia. Thirty minutes later, her foundation unveiled a playground communication board at the Terra School down the road, so children who do not speak can point to symbols and words and be understood on the playground.
The two ceremonies, scheduled back to back, are the business plan and the mission statement of the same venture.
Customers First, Partners Second
Chaka Khan co-founded the café with her sister, Tammy Michelle McCrary, in partnership with Anne Onyeneho, the founder and culinary director of Plantbaed, an Atlanta-based food group. The partnership did not start in a pitch meeting. “Tammy and Chaka came to us as customers, and they loved this food before anyone talked about a partnership,” Onyeneho said in the GlobeNewswire announcement.
“The minute I tasted Anne’s food, I knew I wanted to share it with everybody,” Khan said. “I’ve always believed that good food, like good music, brings people together. This café is about more than what’s on your plate. It’s about love, community, and making sure everybody feels welcome.”
Onyeneho built Plantbaed from her own kitchen: a best-selling cookbook and meal prep service in 2021, two years of Monday pop-ups, then a brick-and-mortar café at Vinings Jubilee in Atlanta. The Serenbe café is Plantbaed’s second location, its first brand licensing and supply chain partnership, and the first restaurant to carry Khan’s name. The menu is whole-food and plant-based, prepared without seed oils, GMOs, or soy. The signature Chaka Bowl layers black beans, ground walnut meat, cilantro-lime wild rice, pumpkin-seed jalapeño pesto, and pico de gallo under a house sauce named “Through the Fire.” Khan announced the opening to her own followers on November 3, writing that the doors had officially opened and her heart was full.
The Foundation Work Starts on Day One
The Chaka Khan Foundation exists to expand understanding, inclusion, and opportunity for neurodivergent individuals, work Khan has tied publicly to her family’s lived experience. At Serenbe, that mission is wired into the café’s operations rather than appended to them.
The communication board at Terra School, at 255 Prom Field Road, uses visual symbols, words, and pictures to help non-speaking children express themselves and interact with their peers. Both the Serenbe café and the Vinings location now invite guests to donate to the foundation at checkout. The café also plans employment opportunities for neurodivergent adults and foundation community programming on site.
“Chaka’s name is on the door, so this café reflects who she is,” said Tammy Michelle, COO of Chaka Khan Enterprises and a co-founder of both the café and the foundation. “That means great food and a place where everyone has the chance to belong. A donation at the register and a communication board on the playground are how we start on day one.”
Khan, who received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2026, has been extending a wellness brand that already includes online meditations and a signature fragrance. A café in Serenbe, a planned community built around wellness and sustainability about 40 minutes southwest of Atlanta, fits that arc. What makes this opening different from the usual celebrity restaurant is the order of operations: the giving mechanism, the hiring intention, and the playground board were all announced before the first bowl was sold.
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