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LA's Black-Owned Restaurants See A Bump In Business Thanks To Google Doc
John Jones III flips tortillas in preparation for Taco Tuesday meals given away to families in Watts on June 2, 2020. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)
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Amid the protests against racial injustice that have taken over Los Angeles's streets the past few weeks, there's been a social media push to support the city's black-owned restaurants.
The effort has been driven, in large part, by a Google document compiled by Kat Hong, which lists more than 300 Black-owned restaurants in Los Angeles. (LAist wrote about Hong's list last week — as did several other media outlets.)
One of them is Comfort L.A., a soul food restaurant with locations in Inglewood and downtown L.A.
Donald Wilson, who manages the Inglewood location, says they've seen a huge amount of support the past few weeks with people coming from all over Southern California and even the Bay Area to try their chicken wings, cornbread and candied yams. Wilson says one customer came all the way from Florida.
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"The support has been overwhelming," Wilson says. "We be having people lined up at the door waiting two to three hours before we even open. And some people are still waiting even when we close. We close at 10 and we're finishing orders, we're getting out here at 12."
We have no data to back this up but Wilson's observations track with what we, at LAist, have been seeing and experiencing — long waits (up to three hours, in some cases) when placing orders for pickup or delivery at some of the restaurants on this list.
There's also EatBlackOwned.com, a website that helps users find thousands of Black-owned restaurants, cafes and diners around the United States. The site is currently crowdfunding a campaign to create an app. (h/t @MonaEatsLA for spreading the word.)
Let's hope the bump in business for Black-owned restaurants continues and isn't a passing trend.
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