San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Celebrating a world of Black cuisine
Black culinary culture center of restaurant week
For Ryane Smith, what started as simple vision has become a full-blown, city-wide celebration of Black food and entrepreneurship.
Smith, a self-described foodie originally from Maryland, launched Black Restaurant Week San Antonio in 2019 in an effort to highlight the wide range of food drawing from the culinary traditions of the African Diaspora available in her adopted city.
“I wanted to support Black businesses specifically because I saw a need,” Smith said. “This was the perfect way to support my community, eat great food and celebrate the culture here.”
What started with nine participating businesses in 2019 has blossomed into more than 30 Black-owned restaurants, food trucks and other vendors slated to join this year’s Black Restaurant Week San Antonio Feb. 21-28. Participating businesses will donate $1 from the sale of each Black Restaurant Week dish to the San Antonio Food Bank.
“The participation and outreach has just grown exponentially. It’s been amazing to see,” Smith said of the annual event. “In general recognition of Black entrepreneurs and businesses that are new or have been here for a while is growing, but there’s always room to improve.”
The latest list of participating establishments includes several well-known restaurants such as The Jerk Shack, Mr. & Mrs. G’s Home Cooking, The Big Bib BBQ, Wayne’s Wings, Mark’s Outing and more. Other Black-owned businesses such as bottled water producer HyDryp H20, catering company The Red Spoon Gourmet, confectioner Al’s Gourmet Nuts and more are also participating.
Smith is quick to note these businesses represent a wide range of African food traditions and cultures including Jamaican, Ethiopian and others, and that the event is not exclusively focused on African American foodways.
Black Restaurant Week San
Antonio will host special events through the week, too. The first of those to be announced is Vegan Family Reunion, which will be held noon to 3 p.m. Feb. 28 at The Cherrity Bar at 302 Montana St. near the Alamodome. The event will feature more than 20 vendors serving exclusively vegan
food.
Other events will include a gardening workshop and food drive, with details to be announced soon.
The organization also is highlighting influential Black chefs, activists and others on the Black Restaurant Week San Antonio
Facebook page by posting biographies and photos detailing how each has helped shape Black history and food culture. Noted chefs Edna Lewis and Marcus Samuelsson and civil rights activist Georgia Gilmore are among those recently featured.
One of Smith’s long-term goals is to use the Black Restaurant Week event platform to raise awareness of the city’s diverse Black food culture to the point where people outside the city think of San Antonio as a place where those foodways are just as much a part of the city’s culinary landscape as enchiladas and margaritas.
“I want this to be a celebration, and there’s room for everyone and everything at the table,” she said.
For the complete list of participating businesses and upcoming event details visit blackrestaurantweeksanantonio.com. More at Facebook: @BlackRestaurantWeekSanAntonio.