Arizona chefs team up with Blackout Tuesday movement
As hundreds of people took to the streets of downtown Phoenix on Monday for a fifth night of protests, many prominent Arizona chefs and food-andbeverage business owners expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
On Tuesday morning, dozens of the state’s best known chefs and independent restaurant owners including James Beard award-winning chef Chris Bianco of Pizzeria Bianco, Charleen Badman of FnB, Justin Beckett of Beckett’s Table and Southern Rail, Barrio Cafe’s Silvana Salcido Esparza, Gio Osso of Virtu and Dom Ruggerio of Hush Public House posted photos of black squares on Instagram with the hashtag #blackouttuesday.
The Blackout Tuesday movement, which started with the music industry, is an effort to use social media to draw attention to the deaths of George Floyd and other black Americans in police custody.
Prominent metro Phoenix restaurant group Upward Projects closed all 15 Arizona locations including Postino WineCafe, Federal Pizza, Joyride Taco House, Windsor and Churn on Tuesday in “support of anti-racism.”
In an emailed statement, CEO Lauren Bailey said the company would make donations to a handful of organizations including the NAACP and Black Lives Matter.
“We can and we
will do more. We need to listen,” Bailey wrote in the statement. “As a company we refuse to simply stand by any longer while members of our community suffer. The call to contribute to this uprising is one that we cannot ignore.”
The restaurant closures give staff “time to participate in the events happening around us,” the statement said.
Bailey also encouraged customers who might have planned to dine at any of the company’s locations on Tuesday to donate money to a list of organizations including Campaign Zero, Equal Justice Initiative, Until Freedom and Black Visions Collective.
Cartel Coffee Lab, a Tempe-based coffee company, expressed support for
the Black Lives Matter movement on Instagram. According to a post, the windows at the company’s location in downtown Tucson were broken during protests on Friday.
“At the end of the day, our windows can be fixed,” the post reads. “Human lives are far more important than broken glass. Our sights should be set on the larger message here: Black Lives Matter.”
The company has created a coffee “in solidarity with black communities,” the post continues, and 100% of the proceeds from its sale will be donated to Black Lives Matter Metro Phoenix.
Other Phoenix coffee shops including Sip Beer and Coffee Garage and Luana’s Coffee and Beer also committed on social media to donating sales on Tuesday to civil rights organizations such as Black Family & Child Services of Arizona.
Wren House Brewing Company in central Phoenix committed to donating proceeds from an upcoming beer to the NAACP in a post on Instagram.