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New Website Helps Diners Find Black-Owned Restaurants

OUR WEEKLY LOS ANGELES — “African-Americans make up only eight percent of restaurant owners and managers in the U.S.,” said Warren Luckett, co-founder of BRW in a recent Forbes feature. “Our mission is to provide a platform that calls for inclusion in the industry and exposes and elevates black-owned businesses.”

Published

7 years ago

August 26, 2019

Oakland Post

With the popularity and general necessity of food, one might wonder, why there aren’t many more black-owned restaurants? (Photo: iStockPhoto / NNPA)

By Lisa Fitch, Our Weekly News Los Angeles Contributor

More than 2,000 Black-owned eateries are featured on the new internet-based restaurant locator eatblackowned.com, which launched June 21 intending to support Black-owned restaurants.

“There’s only one thing that everyone in this world has in common: we all love great tasting food,” creator Edward L. Dillard said. “We have soul food, vegan, BBQ, Caribbean, seafood and more listed on the site.”

“I believe that if people have a place where they can find all the minority-owned restaurants in this country, more of us will start to support these small businesses,” Dillard said.

Increasing Black dollar circulation

“Ninety-three cents of every dollar spent by Black consumers produces no economic benefit for the Black community, as the dollar only circulates in the community for six hours,” he adds.

A professional truck driver for a company out of New Jersey, Dillard has been on the road for 15 years, and travels across the country four or five days of the week.

“I didn’t like the direction of the country,” he said in a recent phone interview. “I wanted to do more to support Black-owned businesses, but I was always gone. I don’t spend money on clothes, accessories or shoes. The majority of my money was going to food.

“I decided to spend it in different restaurants,” he added, noting that the internet was of little help. “The problem was only the major cities and only real popular restaurants would come up in my search. The really small ones wouldn’t come up.” There already are some existing websites promoting Black-owned businesses in general, but they don’t have a lot of restaurant listings.

Dillard was inspired.

Have a vision and go forward

“I had a vision in mind but didn’t have the experience in designing a website,” he said. “Luckily, there’s Google and You Tube. They pretty much teach you everything! I realized there was a small chance that I might be able to make this happen.”

Dillard spent nearly five months conducting research for his project, collecting the names and addresses of more than 2,000 restaurants in the U.S. Then, he completed the website design.

“It took me a long time to design a website,” Dillard said. “What surprised me is that I got the job done.”

Working as a one-man show, Dillard then collected the restaurant pictures and website links to complete the project for launch. So far, the site includes 94 restaurants in New York, but only 35 within a 25-mile radius of downtown LA.

Fostering culinary inclusion

“African-Americans make up only eight percent of restaurant owners and managers in the U.S.,” said Warren Luckett, co-founder of BRW in a recent Forbes feature. “Our mission is to provide a platform that calls for inclusion in the industry and exposes and elevates black-owned businesses.”

Visit https://labrw.com for a list of participating BRW restaurants.

With the popularity and general necessity of food, one might wonder, why there aren’t many more black-owned restaurants?

“Access to capital,” explained Veronica Hendrix, who participated in a panel discussion on food at a recent LA chapter meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists. “It takes a lot to start a restaurant, in terms of finding a location; working with the leasing company agreement; and overhead costs.”

“I think that’s why so many of them are choosing alternative ways of creating a presence in the community,” Hendrix added. “Food trucks, pop ups, becoming personal chefs, cooking for small groups—just looking for alternative ways of raising capital.”

Setting realistic goals

“A lot of banks initially look at them as a risk until they’re proven,” Hendrix said.

Nearly 60 percent of restaurants fail within their first three years, according to recent studies of business start-ups. Restaurateurs have to set realistic goals; conduct market research and analysis; and have an original concept with good food.

‘“I love talking about food,” said Hendrix, who currently writes a blog called “Collard Greens and Caviar”— a take on her wide range of food tastes, from down-south soul food to European delicacies.

“Social media has been huge for me,” Hendrix said. “Through social media, I’ve created a sense of food family.”

The panel — which also included Noelle Carter, who formerly worked in the LA Times test kitchen; and Mona Holmes, writer for Eater Los Angeles — agreed that food journalists are not taken very seriously, even though food is something we deal with every day, preparing it, or eating it, or both.

“Food is very personal,” Hendrix said. “It can create a lot of memories and evoke feelings.”

Attracting regular customers

The panel agreed that almost nothing beats homemade, although many restaurants seek to replicate the looks, smells and tastes of family kitchens, creating an experience that creates a regular customer.

Hendrix admitted that whenever she smells nutmeg, she thinks about her mother’s homemade teacakes.

“That smell triggers comfort, love and safety,” she said. “For us, those teacakes were everything.”

The late Leah Chase, whose restaurant, Dooky Chase, served as an important New Orleans meeting spot during the Civil Rights movement, agreed: “Food builds big bridges,” she said. “If you can eat with someone, you can learn from them and when you learn from someone, you can make big changes.”

Dooky Chase was named one of the 40 most important restaurants of the past 40 years by Food & Wine.

It takes a great deal of work to evoke such a place and create such feelings. To that end, restaurant owners work especially hard. Eatblackowned.com hopes to assist them on the advertising front.

Dillard has plans to include more Black-owned food businesses on the website. “There are Black-owned franchises,” Dillard said. “I will list them, but I’m having a hard time finding those franchises. Rapper Rick Ross owns a lot of Wingstops in Florida—we’ve added them.

“Some Black-owned franchises don’t promote that they’re Black-owned,” he added. “They ‘keep it corporate.’ We do have some franchises listed: Tiger Woods, Shaquille and Michael Jordan have a few franchises.”

A vanishing industry

African American culture has gone global with the exception of soul food. Across the United States, legendary soul food restaurants have closed. In big cities like Chicago, these once-popular restaurants are no more: Army and Louis (1945-2010), Gladys Luncheonette (1946-2001), Izola’s (1950-2011). In New York City: Copelands (1962-2007), and in Los Angeles most of the popular M&M (Mississippi Mary) restaurants (1968 through early 2000s), as well as Aunt Kizzy’s Back Porch have been shuttered.

Lavell Jackson, a former co-owner of The Candy Store, believes several factors like African American migration, African-Americans preparing their own dishes, more Blacks preferring fast food, internal turmoil among family-owned Black restaurants, healthier options and the economic slowdown have done harm to a “niche industry.”

“In regard to the economy, I made hundreds of thousands of dollars during the crack cocaine era,” Jackson said. “My diner was filled with drug kingpins, as well as the local clergy, beautiful women, as well as professional athletes. Now places like Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles–one of the small numbers of diners — has survived and has been dependent on a small cult following. I believe gentrification will give the industry a boost, also.”

Rate restaurants on website

A user’s login page will also be added this fall, with customer reviews and a star system to rate each restaurant.

“Within the next two to three months, I would like to have the members section set up,” Dillard said. “There, you will be able to login with a custom user name and pass code. Members will be able to rate restaurants, leave comments and add pictures for the restaurant.

“Eventually, I will have a page for recipes,” he added. “Members will be able to post their recipes for visitors of the website to search and read.”

Businesses can post a eatblackowned.com listing by completing a form online, which asks for the name, location, contact information and other details of the establishment. Company logos and images can also be added, along with a restaurant description.

“There are two options: basic listings and featured listings,” Dillard said. “Featured listings are paid for and they have several benefits over basic listings. If anybody searches, you’ll be ranked at the top of the first page.”

Dillard is also looking for companies to advertise on the site. “We have advertising space on the front page,” he said. “And we also have space available on our listings page.”

The full-time truck driver believes his website’s listings will help to make some difference in the nation’s Black community.

“I hope this website will get more people to support Black-owned businesses,“ Dillard said. “There’s a huge racial wealth gap in this country. We need to do everything we can to build ourselves up.

Hopefully, someone will find a new eatery they never tried and go get some great tasting food.”

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

3 days ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

6 days ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke

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PRESS ROOM: NBA Hall of Fame Nominee Terry Cummings Joins 100 Black Men of DeKalb County to Launch Victory & Values Initiative

NNPA NEWSWIRE — NBA Hall of Fame nominee and Basketball Legend Terry Cummings was administered the official member’s oath and ceremonially pinned during a special induction ceremony held on Friday, February 20th.

Published

6 days ago

February 27, 2026

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Cummings becomes an honorary member, joining other role model sports stars

NBA Hall of Fame nominee and Basketball Legend Terry Cummings has officially become an honorary member of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County, marking a powerful new chapter for the 100 Black Men and youth development across the region.

Cummings was administered the official member’s oath and ceremonially pinned during a special induction ceremony held on Friday, February 20th. The moment signified more than membership — it marked the launch of the organization’s transformative new platform, the Victory & Values Initiative.

The Victory & Values Initiative is a groundbreaking youth development program designed to empower elementary and middle school students through a dynamic blend of sports, mentorship, and STEM exposure. The initiative focuses on building health, discipline, character, leadership, and access to opportunity — creating pathways for long-term academic and personal success.

“This is about more than sports,” said Cummings during the ceremony. “It’s about using the platform of athletics to teach life lessons, create access, and build the next generation of leaders.”

The induction ceremony also featured notable guests including NASCAR’s newest Star Driver, Lavar Scott and NASCAR Director of Athletic Performance, Phil Horton, who joined Cummings for a powerful Victory & Values Town Hall discussion. The Town Hall was moderated by renowned Sports Emcee John Hollins and focused on leadership, resilience, discipline, and the importance of mentorship in shaping young lives.

A “Day at NASCAR” for 75+ Youth

Cummings wasted no time getting to work. On his first full day as an honorary member, he joined his new brothers of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County to host a “Day at NASCAR,” escorting more than 75 youth to a once-in-a-lifetime experience at EchoPark Motor Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway).

The youth participants received behind-the-scenes access including: an exclusive tour of Pit Row, access to the Garage Area and exploration of the interactive Fan Zone.

The experience culminated with a surprise meet-and-greet and Q&A session with NASCAR Superstar Bubba Wallace, who shared insights on perseverance, preparation, and breaking barriers in professional sports.

The day served as a living example of the ‘Victory & Values’ Initiative in action — exposing youth to new industries, expanding their vision for the future, and connecting them directly with high- level mentors and role models.

Building Leaders Through Access and Mentorship

The 100 Black Men of DeKalb County – a chapter of the largest, national mentoring organization in the county – continues to expand its footprint with programs focused on academic excellence, economic empowerment, leadership development, and health & wellness.

The launch of ‘Victory & Values’ represents a strategic expansion of the organization’s impact

intentionally integrating athletics and STEM to engage youth at an early age while reinforcing core principles such as integrity, accountability, teamwork, and perseverance.

“Our mission has always been to mentor the next generation,” said Vaughn Irons, President-Elect of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County. “With Terry Cummings joining the brotherhood, along with partners in NASCAR and professional sports, we are creating unprecedented access and exposure for our youth. Victory & Values is about turning inspiration into structured opportunity.”

By connecting elementary and middle school students to professional athletes, executives, STEM professionals, and community leaders, the initiative aims to:

Increase youth exposure to careers in sports business, engineering, and performance science
Strengthen mentorship pipelines
Promote physical wellness and mental resilience
Build character-driven leadership at an early age

Open Invitation to Youth and Families

All youth are invited to participate in the Victory & Values Initiative, along with the other countless, impactful programs offered by the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County.

Parents and guardians seeking mentorship, leadership development, academic enrichment, and transformative exposure opportunities for their children are encouraged to connect with the organization.

As NBA Legend Terry Cummings’ induction demonstrates, Victory & Values is more than a program — it is a movement designed to build champions in life, not just in sports.

For more information about the Victory & Values Initiative or to enroll a student, contact: 100 Black Men of DeKalb County at Phone at 404.241.1338, info@100bmod.org or Tee Foxx at 404.791.6525,