What is the importance of The Chicken Coop in the novel, We Cast a Shadow?

The Chicken Coop is a restaurant “slash community center slash sometime boarding house” located in the Tiko. Since the narrator’s childhood, Mama has operated the Chicken Coop, and it serves as a hub for both the family and the neighborhood at large. As the city continues to extend the Tiko’s boundaries and gain possession of black-owned properties, the Chicken Coop comes under threat. At the end of the novel, the narrator mentions that the restaurant has been converted to condos, along with many buildings in the Tiko.