Community, consistency, and culture: that’s how a restaurant thrives, according to Lewis Rudd, co-founder of the nearly 40-year-old brand Ezell’s Famous Chicken. Those values are echoed at many of the oldest Black-owned restaurants in the U.S.; they’re part of what has sustained these businesses, despite being some of the most at-risk during the pandemic. More than places to count on for a home-cooked meal, these restaurants are also cultural centers that anchor their neighborhoods. Dining at one of them supports a small business that has persevered—and risen—through decades of social, political, and financial inequality. Here are eight spots we hope to enjoy for years to come.
Hawkins House of Burgers, Los Angeles
The Hawkins family has been feeding the Watts neighborhood of Southeast Los Angeles, where founder Yancey Hawkins first opened up shop in 1939, for more than 80 years. While many storefronts were destroyed during the Watts Rebellion of 1965 and again in the 1992 Uprising, Hawkins House of Burgers, a respected community dining table, went untouched. If you want to challenge your appetite, order the Leaning Tower of Watts—a precarious stack of three half-pound patties, a hot link, chili, pastrami, eggs, and bacon.
Dooky Chase’s Restaurant, New Orleans
It was Edgar “Dooky” Chase Jr. and his wife Leah who transformed the sandwich stand opened by Chase Sr. in 1939 into one of the country’s first upscale African American restaurants. In the ’40s, it was the only place where Black New Orleanians could cash checks; in the ’60s, its Upper Room, a private second-floor space, became a meeting place for Civil Rights leaders like Thurgood Marshall and Reverend Abraham Lincoln Davis. Now run by Edgar and Leah’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the restaurant houses what many consider the greatest African American art collection in the city, with over 120 pieces from 50 Black artists; it lives on not only because it serves mouthwatering food (Leah’s signature Creole gumbo is a fan favorite), but because it continues to adapt to the needs of its community.
Brenda’s Bar-Be-Que Pit, Montgomery, Alabama
Located on a rural two-lane road, this Alabama barbecue joint’s inconspicuous location may be why it played an integral role as a secret gathering place for protest organizers in the ’60s. During the Montgomery Bus Boycott, strategy meetings were held in the restaurant’s back garden, where founder Jereline Bethune also taught African Americans to read and write in order to pass literacy tests at the polls, an obstacle created as a form of voter suppression. Today, Jereline’s granddaughter Donetta Bethune helps run the pit and says guests still line up at 10 a.m., just as they have since 1942, to get a taste of the famous ribs. These days, the pig ear sandwich has become another fan favorite.
Busy Bee Cafe, Atlanta
It’s no surprise that one of the country’s oldest Black-owned restaurants is in Atlanta, long a center of wealth, culture, and power for the African American community. Founded at the height of segregation in 1947, Busy Bee Cafe was originally helmed by self-taught cook Lucy Jackson; according to the restaurant, it’s the only business that opened during that era that’s still standing on Martin Luther King Drive. An old haunt of Civil Rights leaders in the ’60s, namely Atlanta native Martin Luther King Jr., Busy Bee has continued to feed the appetite of changemakers, including Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and former President Barack Obama, with dishes like fried shrimp and peach cobbler.
Ben’s Chili Bowl, Washington, D.C.
Virginia Ali was just 24 when she opened Ben’s Chili Bowl on Washington, D.C.’s U Street with her husband Ben in 1958. At 87 years old, she can still be found at the counter greeting guests each day. Ali, who remembers hearing about Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of a promised land as he dined at the restaurant’s counter, says she feels privileged to have lived long enough to witness America’s first Black president share his own vision of a promised land at Ben’s. Today, patrons can enjoy Ben’s original chili recipe at the same counter as King once did, or indulge at home—their famous chili half-smokes, a sausage made from equal parts pork and beef, can be shipped nationwide.
Sylvia’s, New York City
Southerners may balk at seeing a New York restaurateur dubbed the “Queen of Soul Food,” but Sylvia Woods was born and raised in Hemingway, South Carolina—and it was her Southern hospitality and generations-old recipes (namely her Carolina-style “World Famous Talked About Bar-B-Que Ribs”) that helped her cultivate a relationship with the Harlem community. Woods passed away in 2012, but her children and grandchildren, who still live in Harlem, have expanded the original 35-seat luncheonette into a family-run enterprise that stretches along the block—now co-named Sylvia P. Woods Way.
Old Fashioned Donuts, Chicago
Buritt “Mr. B” Bulloch moved to Chicago from Mississippi in the early ’60s at the tail end of the Great Migration and opened Old Fashioned Donuts on Chicago’s South Michigan Avenue in 1972, where he initially marketed his glazed confections by providing passersby with samples. The building remains exactly as it was 49 years ago, complete with Mr. B—now 82 years young—in the kitchen frying up his signature glazed donuts and apple fritters. With no plans to retire, his motto is: “You keep buying, we will keep frying!”
Ezell’s Famous Chicken, Seattle
Ezell’s has put Seattle on the map for Southern foods with its golden, scratch-made chicken, which it’s served to fans—from local students to the Seattle Seahawks—since 1984. Oprah, who first tried the chicken in 1989, fell so in love that the next year, she flew the co-founders out to Chicago to cater her birthday party. You can see her thank you note displayed proudly in the original Central District location: “Ezell’s, I don’t know what I like more—the chicken or the sweet potato pie.” Our recommendation: try both at any of its 16 locations (or its food truck) around the Pacific Northwest, and see for yourself.
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