By Chris Brockel
FEED Kithens
The Madison Black Chamber of Commerce will, once again, host Black Restaurant Week for the Madison area the week of Aug. 13 culminating in the Food Taste Jamboree Sunday, Aug. 20 from 2–5 pm in the FEED Kitchens parking lot. The Madison Black Chamber of Commerce and FEED Kitchens invite you to join us to celebrate Black-owned restaurants, food trucks, caterers, and dessert and specialty vendors throughout the week and then join us for the Jamboree on Sunday.
There are several themed restaurant weeks in Madison throughout the year which are good marketing initiatives for the participating businesses. Black Restaurant Week is also about marketing for our local Black-owned businesses as they do not continue to exist unless we can drive customers and revenue to them. But Black Restaurant Week is about more than marketing and driving revenue.
Black Restaurant Week helps bring diverse people to the table. Food is the intersection of life and by sharing food we are sharing culture. Folks may not know about Black-owned restaurants in our region as they tend to be smaller establishments and they are also unlikely to know about the food carts or tasted their food. Bringing vendors together in a single event introduces their businesses and cuisine to a large audience, expands their customer base, and helps bring diverse voices together.
Black Restaurant Week is also important in helping to resource Black-owned businesses. Unfortunately, Black-owned businesses have a more difficult time securing financing from traditional sources. There has been plenty of recent research that shows Black-owned businesses are fighting an uphill battle against low credit scores, racial bias, and societal expectations and are much less likely to secure financing than their white counterparts. Given the generational wealth gap and the lack of assets that can be used for collateral, black entrepreneurs are even further in the hole when it comes to securing resources. Even when the chances may be good that financial support can be secured, blacks are much less likely to pursue traditional financing for fear of having their application denied.
Recent information about the use of PPP loans and other COVID relief funds bears this out as well. Black-owned businesses were far less supported with this aid than were white-owned businesses and the rate of failure during COVID for Black-owned businesses was tremendously higher than for white-owned businesses.
FEED Kitchens takes great pride in offering commercial production space for entrepreneurs who have traditionally lacked access to the resources and support we provide. To that end, 66% of the businesses operating at FEED are owned by people of color. We also take pride in our intentional partnerships in supporting entrepreneurs and are honored again this year to be working with the Madison Black Chamber of Commerce to be bringing the Madison Black Restaurant Week Food Taste Jamboree to our parking lot Aug. 20.