Black Restaurant Week aims to give a boost to Miami’s Black-owned restaurants
The COVID-19 pandemic presented Lil Greenhouse Grill with an opportunity.
Co-owners Nicole Gates and Karim Bryant could either brace for what would be a huge hit to their Overtown restaurant’s bottom line or develop new marketing strategies and partnerships to spread their visibility. In the end, they opted for the latter.
“We found ways to pivot our business in a more positive aspect,” said Gates who doubles as Lil Greenhouse’s creative lead. “We increased our digital footprint through delivery apps, social media and gathering a new type of customer by integrating digital aspects that we never used before.”
And now, thanks to meeting the people at Black Restaurant Week, Lil Greenhouse Grill is hoping to have a lot more customers. From Nov. 11-20, several restaurants throughout the state will be participating in Black Restaurant Week, a nine-day-long celebration of cultural cuisine at its finest. With partnerships and specials throughout the state, BRW presents an opportunity for Black-owned restaurants to grow their brand while forging lifelong relationships along the way. For consumers, it just means learning about and enjoying all that Black restaurants have to offer.
“We really try to take the financial burden off the restaurants,” Black Restaurant Week managing partner Falayn Ferrell said.
Added Gates: “We thought this would be a great initiative to get involved with, especially for national exposure and also the affiliation with other restaurateurs of our same demographic.”
Minority-owned small businesses account for less than 19% of the market, according to the latest U.S. Census Data. Black-owned businesses occupy an even smaller share at less than 5%. The small percentage of Black-owned restaurants is why Warren Luckett started Black Restaurant Week, according to Ferrell.
“We wanted to create a platform that was a little bit more all-inclusive for your fast, casual, counter serve, bakeries just to bring some awareness to the great things they were doing in the culinary space,” Ferrell said. She added that participants in Black Restaurant Week, which started in Houston in 2016 and expanded to Florida in 2020, includes a coveted spot in the directory. Restaurants also capitalize on the increased exposure by doing a specialty dish.
And because of a host of reasons related to disparities in wealth and access to capital, many Black-owned businesses lack the funds necessary to engage in widespread promotion campaigns, says Ferrell.
“Most small restaurants don’t have the financial capacity to fund a marketing campaign on their own,” Ferrell added, which she estimated could cost a business upwards of $10,000.
Business owners like Aamir Taylor stand to benefit from partnering with Black Restaurant Week. The owner of Italian Vice, an Italian ice caterer who’s one of the Black-owned eateries at Smorgasboard Miami, Taylor’s company opened up in January 2020. Despite the challenges of opening a business just before the pandemic hit, Taylor has been able to stay afloat thanks to partnerships with the Miami Dolphins and Miami-Dade College. Still, if it weren’t for his robust Instagram page and interesting flavor names (all are named after rappers), Taylor would’ve suffered a lot more.
“I haven’t had tons of money to do marketing,” said Taylor, who plans to bring back the “Kodak Blackraspberry” as a specialty. “Everything I’ve done has been grassroots.”
Taylor is excited for the opportunity to be featured in the directory because of the increased “exposure to the Black community and beyond.” For Gates, who will be serving either grilled or fried snapper with collared greens and mac and cheese as a specialty, it’s about the possibility of connecting with Black-owned restaurants across the country.
“We can bounce ideas off each other in different regions and we can encourage our customers to patronize once they go into various cities and towns,” Gates said.
Check out the Black Restaurant Week directory at https://blackrestaurantweeks.com/national-directory/ to find local participants.
This story was originally published November 10, 2022 at 3:59 PM.
