Black Women in Business
Celebrate soul food and more at Madison’s second Black Restaurant Week
McGee’s Chicken opened on Park Street about three months before the first Black Restaurant Week at the end of last summer.
During the week-long, citywide promotion, staff immediately noticed a change in clientele.
“We had numerous people come out, it was very diverse,” said Eunice McKenniie, a cashier at McGee’s. “I believe it had a great impact. I think it’s a good thing to do because a lot of people get to know the black-owned restaurants.”
Black Restaurant Week returns Aug. 13-20. Diners will find drink and dinner specials in brick and mortar rurantsesta like George’s Chicken & Fish in Sun Prairie and David’s Jamaican Cuisine in Monona. A soul food walking tour of the east side will incorporate several food carts. A widely circulated poster spotlights bakers and caterers, too.
Organizer Milele Chikasa Anana said she talked to McGee’s owner Esperdell McGee last year after the event finished.
“He said his business went from almost all black patrons to Hispanic, Asian and white,” Anana said. “All the restaurants were the benefactors of increased patronage that week.
“They did a lot of good business … and those customers came back. Even the food carts, which we didn’t emphasize last year, they even benefited.”
Anana is the publisher of Umoja Magazine and the “marketing guru” for the Black Chamber of Commerce, which produces Black Restaurant Week.
She’s hoping for a “banner year” at restaurants like Sweet Tea at the Fountain on State Street, a new Falbo Bros. Pizzeria location on the north side and food carts like Cafe Costa Rica.
“Right now, this awareness thing is so crucial,” said Anana. “Each restaurant has a story to tell, you know?”
Anana is thrilled to be able to highlight nine black-owned brick and mortar spots, “quite an achievement for a town this size, a population this size. It shows the entrepreneurial spirit is very high here.”
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