Now-robust Black Restaurant Week can support grieving Buffalo community

The eight-day window – running June 12-19 – will allow diners to support Black- and brown-owned food-and-drink businesses, many of which will offer specials for $20.22, or other discounts like buy-one, get-one-free drinks or a free dessert with a meal purchase.

Mark Overall, president of the Buffalo Urban League Young Professionals New York (BULYPNY) and organizer of Black Restaurant Week, is proud of the expanded field, the fruits of four months of consistent work.

"There's definitely a surge," he said. "So many things changed just in the last year. And that's going to continue to be the case."

Lloyal's Famous Lasagna, Big Mama's Hustle & Soul, Golden Hour Treats & Things, Unapologetic Coffee and Blazin' Barbeque Smokehouse are among the participating eateries that have opened in the last year. This quintet reflects traditional cuisine for Black-owned restaurants, such as barbecue and soul food. But it also reflects a diversity of options, including Buffalo's first lasagna-focused restaurant, a Broadway-Fillmore dessert specialist and a coffee shop owned by two sisters committed to overcoming the impacts of a food desert.

Overall said BULYPNY will recognize four restaurants taking part in Black Restaurant Week that have persevered 20 or more years. Doctor Bird's Rasta-rant, Mike's Steakhouse, Pine Hill Halal Market and Ike & BG's will receive plaques for their endurance.

Jefferson Avenue Focus

Sunshine Vegan Eats and Golden Cup Coffee are the two participants closest to the Jefferson Avenue Tops, the site of the racially motivated mass shooting May 14, with the coffee shop sitting barely a block away.

Golden Cup owners Larry Stitts and Jacqueline Stover-Stitts are coffee roasters and distributors before they are restaurateurs, supplying the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus and other local sites with coffee. But their Southern desserts – like sweet potato pound cake, caramel cake, apple pie and pastries – create repeat customers, as does their signature black-eyed pea and collard green soup.

The coffee shop owners were touched closely by the tragedy and are still dealing with grief.

"It's very, very sad," Stover-Stitts said Friday, between pouring African Gold coffee and taking lunch orders. She added an ounce of optimism, noting how people from outside the Jefferson neighborhood have discovered the small, family-owned shop during the crush of attention the last three weeks.

Overall was also touched by the tragedy. His cousin was Aaron Salter Jr., the security guard and retired Buffalo police officer who confronted the gunman at Tops and was fatally shot. Overall emphasized the few degrees of separation connecting the Buffalo community and how his recent communications with restaurants involved a little counseling and comforting, too.

"People who lost their lives were servants in this community, they worked in churches, gave out free meals ..." Overall said. "It would be a disservice to them to compound that tragedy by decreasing the awareness of Black and brown restaurants."

Nikki Searles owns Sunshine Vegan Eats, a creative vegan restaurant on Jefferson less than a mile from the Tops. If she needs to quickly replenish something for her restaurant, she'll make the trek to the grocery store, which she did the day before the shooting. The dawn of Black Restaurant Week could be encouraging for Sunshine, given the heightened focus on the neighborhood.

"People want to support," Searles said. "Whether it's different races or the same race, people are coming together."

How Black Restaurant Week Helps

Overall, the BULYPNY president, took the reins of organizing the annual restaurant week from Mark Glasgow, but he's been involved with the Urban League since 2015. He's preserved many tools given to past participants in return for their $50 entrance fee. There's a strong emphasis on marketing and business strategy, Overall said, with simple-but-significant tactics.

"The constant complaint about Black and minority restaurants is when their hours are Googled and then they're closed" even though the listed hours say they're supposed to be open, Overall said. The organizer said he's helping each of the participants update their Google profiles, while Bennett High School students have volunteered to work with some on their social media presentations.

Overall has been surprised how many people he's spoken to who are simply unaware that these Black-owned restaurants exist.

"Buffalo natives are saying, 'Hey, where is that place?' " Overall said.

A guide to Black Restaurant Week, including specific specials and menus, will be available online and in print later this week, he added. 

Guidance has extended to encouraging healthy options, with each participant required to offer at least one. Black-owned Real Life Dietetics, run by nutritionist Rachel N. Laster, again joins Black Restaurant Week as a resource for businesses. Black-owned restaurants now better accommodate certain diets, too, with Buffalo Plant Burger and Sunshine Vegan Eats focused exclusively on plant-based fare. 

From a broader perspective, Overall wants Black Restaurant Week to help restaurants not only stay in business, but grow. He's seen too many Black-owned businesses close because they lacked assertive marketing.

"It's imperative that we do this every year," he said. "People are moving back. There are thousands of people every year here now that weren't last year."