Chicago Black Restaurant Week Celebrates Another Successful Year

The fourth annual Chicago Black Restaurant Week recently took place and featured over 35 black-owned restaurants from across the Greater Chicagoland Area.
The fourth annual Chicago Black Restaurant Week recently took place and featured over 35 black-owned restaurants from across the Greater Chicagoland Area.

Chicago Black Restaurant Week Celebrates Another Successful Year

BY KATHERINE NEWMAN

This year’s fourth annual Chicago Black Restaurant Week recently came to a close after featuring over 35 black-owned eateries across Chicago who all opened their doors to hungry customers and offered special menu items and discounted prices.

Chicago Black Restaurant Week is a way to remind people to support black businesses during Black History Month and all year round.

The concept of hosting a restaurant week has been widely used in cities across the country for quite some time, even Chicago hosts a city-wide restaurant week every year.

At the core, it is simply a week-long event where restaurants offer menu items for a discounted price which brings new customers to their establishment and allows them to try the food in the hopes that they will return.

Chicago Black Restaurant Week was created to give African American owned restaurants in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs a new platform to increase their public exposure and introduce them to new customers.

“The idea for Chicago Black Restaurant Week came from the desire to do something to help funnel money back into my community. It began out of my love for food and the full desire to support my community,” said Lauran Smith, designer of Chicago Black Restaurant Week.

Prior to the first Chicago Black Restaurant Week, Smith, who is a public relations professional in Chicago, realized that the black-owned businesses and restaurants she frequented were lacking support.

She took it upon herself to find a way to make sure people were made aware of the delicious cuisine that is being served at blackowned restaurants across the city.

This is the fourth year that Chicago Black Restaurant Week has taken place and each event has been bigger than the year prior according to Smith, and she has no plans to slow down anytime soon.

“I would say that the event has grown tremendously over the years. More consumers are learning about the movement, and they want to get involved,” said Smith. “I feel excellent about year four. I am happy about the level of participation from the businesses, and for the support of the masses. Everyone was excited to learn of new businesses to try.”

Moving forward, Smith said she sees no end in sight. She hopes to continue to expand the list of black-owned businesses that participate in Chicago Black Restaurant Week, invite more high profile diners to visit Chicago and partake in the event and continue to generate more revenue and exposure for black-owned businesses across the city.

“As far as growth of Chicago Black Restaurant Week, I just want it to increase

in size so that the businesses receive more revenue to put into their businesses, I want for The Obamas, Chance the Rapper, and other celebrities to catch on and want to make it part of their February schedule of events and I want more people to realize how amazing the African American community actually is,” said Smith.

To learn more about Chicago Black Restaurant Week, visit www.chiblackrestaurantweek. com. You can also follow Chicago Black restaurant Week on Instagram @officialchicagobrw.

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