How to Support Black-Owned Restaurants
This post was originally published for Komeeda.
What Does Support Look Like?
Supporting Black-owned restaurants means supporting them throughout the year, year after year. True solidarity and support isn't seasonal; it may have a starting point, but it does not have an end point. Supporting Black-owned restaurants entails making a concerted, ongoing effort to seek them out and order from them.
It looks like making a conscious choice to spend your money in one restaurant over another.
It looks like making one order, then another, and another, until a habit is formed and the restaurant becomes a go-to spot.
It looks like bringing friends to eat there once the world opens back up and encouraging them to make it their go-to spot, too.
It looks like frequenting the restaurant enough where you build relationships with the people who work there.
It looks like leaving positive reviews online to help the restaurant reach potential new customers through word-of-mouth. This is incredibly valuable for Black-owned restaurants which often have tighter budgets that can’t be spent on marketing or advertising.
It looks like starting this process over if you don’t like the food in the first restaurant you try, and continuing this process when you do.
It looks a lot like supporting any other business.
Ordering from Black-owned restaurants in February, or during the Black Lives Matter protests is a starting or mid-point, not the end.
If you haven't already, consider making COVID a starting point to help these restaurants which are disproportionately hurting during the shutdown for reasons which have existed before the virus (such as fewer loan opportunities, and less financial security), and for reasons arising after the virus (struggling to access PPP loans).
If you are taking the pledge of continued support for Black-owned restaurants, consider starting with one of the businesses listed in the massive directory put together by Eat Black Owned. To find and order from Black-owned restaurants, you can use EatOkra. Or, for a bit more manual labor, check out this spreadsheet of Black-owned restaurants in NYC.
Other Ways to Get Started
For direct, actionable ways to provide financial support to POC in the food world, here are just a few organizations and funds to donate to:
Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust
National Black Food & Justice Alliance
Other Resources/Tidbits for Getting Started
The Buy Black 30 Challenge is designed to help participants use their dollars to bring change to systemic racism in the financial institutions preventing Black-owned businesses from having equal levels of access to loans.
To find and support other Black-owned businesses, check out:
Support isn’t a one-and-done kind of deal, I can’t emphasize this enough. It isn’t cherry-picking one restaurant from a list of hundreds to order from one time and calling it a day. To truly support, there needs to be a change in cognition and habits; there needs to be research done to self-educate so we can continuously challenge our thought-processes and decision-making. This is how we put the work in to change systems and society. This is how we support.
The most important lesson above anything else — I hope this will be something you take away and apply elsewhere — is to start, and don’t stop.
Further engagement:
This article from Restaurant Business Online shares personal accounts, stories, and ongoing struggles from owners of Black-owned restaurants to open them, and to keep them open.
Black-owned businesses are critical to communities and for representation. Shopify breaks down why.
This commentary article from KQED centers around discontent that eating at Black-owned restaurants isn't enough given the issues at hand regarding police brutality. There are valid points and sentiments behind the piece, and it is worth a read.
This blog post from Kiss My Passion outlines accessible steps for supporting POC-owned businesses.
This great article from Civil Eats looks at racism in the food system and how multiple factors such as economic disparity, politics, and accessibility to healthful food have created health struggles in POC communities.
Still not sure why it is so important to support Black-owned businesses? Here are 6 reasons to.
