Learning and Sharing Black Stories

Seasoned success:

Black-owned restaurants in the bay area

Brianna Cheng

Though the Bay Area is often considered liberal and diverse, 75.8 percent of residents are white or Asian, according to the 2010 census. The Black population declined nearly one percent from 2000 to 2010.

Though the Black population of the Bay Area is declining, Black-owned businesses add some much-needed diversity to the Bay. Many of these businesses are locally-owned, and supporting them not only benefits the wide variety of Bay Area business owners, but also strengthens local economies and causes.

Considering the pandemic, it’s hard to shop locally, due to the in-person nature of many of these businesses. However, there are a few Black-owned restaurants around the Peninsula that offer a wide variety of take-out cuisines. Here are four of the closest restaurants to the Belmont area:

Keith’s Chicken-NWaffles

Keith’s is a small shop serving, as suggested, fried chicken and waffles, located just off of 280 in Daly City. Not only do they serve the standard combos of chicken and waffles, but they also have speciality waffles, such as the Antonio Special (drizzled with cream cheese and chocolate), the Sweet Potato Waffle (topped with candied yam), and the Red Velvet Waffle (featuring cream cheese and a chocolate drizzle). They also serve a variety of Southern-inspired side dishes, including mac and cheese, collard greens, beans and rice, and cornbread. Although he was inspired by the West Coast, Richardson returned to the South to develop the recipes for his signature dishes. “As far as recipes are concerned, I spent a lot of time in the South, in Georgia, Alabama, since that’s where the cuisine is from. Since I have family out there, I went to a lot of different restaurants around the area, acquiring a taste for the food. It took a couple of years, but then I came back and tried to duplicate it here. The recipes were formed by my family members and my own trial and error,” Richardson said.

As a restaurant owner, Richardson often has to occupy multiple roles, especially if the staff is short-handed one day.

“As [an] owner-operator, you spend at least 12 hours a day there: in the morning, we start cooking and opening up; then I manage operations until we close the shop. I’m a hands-on type of person, so if we’re shorthanded, I can do just about everything, from taking orders, to cooking food, to washing dishes; whatever the need is, I fill it in,” he said.

In recent months, Richardson has noticed an outpouring of support from the community for Black-owned businesses like his own.

“During the tragedy of George Floyd’s death, we gained the most support from the community. Because of community support and promotion of Black businesses, we’ve seen some growth,” Richardson said.

As his business continues to grow, he is looking to expand into other locations, offering his delicious chicken and waffles to a new community.

“We’re excited to open up another location pretty soon. With the new year, we announced our new restaurant in South San Francisco! We have much more to come in the plans, so we’re just excited to start growing the business,” Richardson said.

Claire’s CruNch Cake

Owned by former San Mateo mayor Claire Mack, Claire’s was born out of love for the desserts from the now-closed Blum’s Bakery chain.

Along with the signature Mocha Crunch, Mack has expanded her menu to include Chocolate, Lemon (her personal favorite), and the wildly popular Strawberry Crunch. Mack also pulled from family recipes to offer the pineapple upside-down and coconut cakes.

“The pineapple upside-down cake recipe I got from one of my aunts, who had three restaurants in San Mateo. She was an outstanding cook; she rarely used measuring spoons, did everything by feel, an exquisite cook. I used her recipe with a bit of embellishment,” Mack said. “I learned how to make the coconut cake through several of my friends from the South. I tried to make it the way their mothers made it.”

Mack used to run her business out of a San Mateo bakery known as Kathy’s Kreative Kakes, owned by Kathy McDonald. Mack and McDonald formed an easy dynamic; McDonald was known for her highly-decorated cakes, while Mack was known for her nostalgic offerings.

However, that bakery was not the end of Mack’s story. In 1991, Mack was elected to the San Mateo City Council, serving the city for 12 years. During those 12 years, she was also elected the first Black mayor of San Mateo, servimg three terms in office. Her main priority was as an activist, protecting her community of San Mateo citizens who felt overlooked by the government.

“I wanted to make sure my neighborhood was not turned into a ghetto. I ran for politics and became elected,” Mack said.

After serving her community through politics, Mack continued to make her ever-popular cakes, this time from the comfort of her home. However, because of the pandemic, customers don’t stay long; Mack misses the atmosphere of visitors making conversation.

“It hasn’t been a struggle to adapt the business to the pandemic, but I no longer let people into the house. People used to come in and sit in my living room, waiting for their cake,” Mack said. “In the past, I used to have kids come over and bring their aprons and fill up pans or something, just to help out a bit.”

Mack deeply empathizes with local restaurant owners, many of whom are having to shut their doors for good.

“I’m very sorry for all the fine restaurants in San Mateo that are closing, and in many cases aren’t going to be able to reopen after this. We know it’s a disaster; it’s just something that no one’s ever lived through. So, I’m just sorry that we’re suddenly like this,” Mack said.

The pandemic has compounded her worries about being one of the few Black-owned food businesses in the area.

“The sad thing is that I’m the only Black food business in the city of San Mateo, and that’s tragic. I feel really sad for my city. We had another good soul food restaurant here called Gators, but they didn’t last very long, which is unfortunate. I don’t like being the only anything. That’s not right. The population is too big, we need another good soul food restaurant in San Mateo, and right now there isn’t one,” Mack said.

True Ethiopian Cuisine

True Ethiopian Cuisine is a family-owned business based in San Carlos. They are primarily a catering business, but have adapted to taking individual orders during the pandemic. The staples of Ethiopian cuisine are wot, a spicy stew of meat and vegetables, and injera, a flat sourdough made of wheat, barley, and teff, a grain native to Ethiopia. The business offers a variety of vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options, from vegetable wots to 100% teff flour injera. The primary seasoning of Ethiopian food is berbere, a combination of chili, garlic, nigella, Ethiopian cardamom, and a few other spices. Alecha Wot is stew with the exclusion of berbere, making it less spicy. True Ethiopian Cuisine also serves tibs: sauteed meat with onions and basic seasonings. The restaurant brings an interesting, spicy twist to normal take-out.

Back a Yard Grill

Back A Yard is a Caribbean-American grill, with five locations across the Bay Area, the closest one located in Menlo Park. They serve a variety of barbeque plates, wraps, and salad bowls. Their signature dishes are yard plates: jerk meat with rice and beans and fried plantains. Jerk is a traditional cooking style in Jamaica, with meat dry rubbed with a hot spice mixture, which primarily consists of allspice and scotch bonnet peppers, and cooked over a smoking fire. According to Britannica, the method originated with the indigenous Taino, who taught the cooking method to enslaved Africans. The cultural exchange also went the other way. According to NPR, rice and beans probably arrived in the Americas via the slave trade. Back A Yard’s blend of African-indiginous cooking brings a delicious twist to the common barbeque plate.

For in-depth reviews and to hear more about these resturants’ stories, scan here:

Black artists reclaim alternative music

As millions of Americans turned on their TVs to watch the 2014 Grammy Awards Show, many viewers were excited to see Kendrick Lamar, who was nominated for seven awards. Lamar, a Compton rapper and poet, had spent years producing albums and singles that reflected his experiences as a young Black man from a poor community. After Lamar lost in six categories, his fans still had hope that he would win “Best Rap Album” against Macklemore, a white Seattle rapper who gained fame for incorporating comedy into Rico Nasty his music. He didn’t. In an unexpected turn of events, Macklemore took home the award. Even Macklemore was in disbelief as he texted Lamar, “You got robbed. I wanted you to win. You should have. It’s weird and it sucks that I robbed you.” Social media platforms exploded and blamed racism for what they called “a snub.” They demanded more recognition of Black artists in awards, and the Grammys listened. Photo by OFF THE LENS They spent the next half-decade focusing on diversity, although many viewers criticized them for being performative. While the U.S. focused on inequality in mainstream music, the alternative music industry remained largely forgotten. Alternative music originated from the underground rock scenes of the 1970s. Alternative rock was often more raw, hardcore, and emotional than mainstream rock, and it became popular amongst younger listeners. As time went on, alternative or “alt” music became a mix of all genres as artists refused to abide by the norms of the music industry. Ever since alternative artists gained larger audiences in the 1980s, the genre has been largely dominated by white artists. The voices of Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers were the blueprints of alternative music, but today its stars include Billie Eilish, Tame Impala, and Green Day. Despite the dominance of white artists, Black artists have been essential in building the genre. Quintessential Black genres like reggae, blues, rock, and rap were all the building blocks for alternative music. Household names like Jimi Hendrix, Prince, and Little Richard helped shape alternative music as it rose in popularity. However, their soulful voices and genderbending styles were considered less palatable and alt fans often went for the grungier styles of Nirvana. Black artists often told their struggles with racism, violence, and poverty through their music. When their stories were traded out for music that made white audiences feel more comfortable, they got excluded from the very genre that they helped build.

As a result of this exclusion, Black artists forged exclusively Black genres like Afro-punk.

Afro-punk combines traditional African rhythms, punk rock, grunge, and even rap which provides a uniquely African American perspective on alternative music. Afro-punk artists provide a safe space away from the racism and gender norms of white society. They even created their own punk hairstyles that work on Black hair and incorporated traditional African piercings, jewelry, and clothing to create a style that encapsulates the experiences and joy of many African Americans.

Exmiranda, a Ghanaian-Canadian rapper, mixes R&B, soul, and West African rhythms into her music to create an empowering style of rap. Her single “Fresh Fro” features her rapping over electric guitar about the pride she has in her hair, her Black identity, and femininity. The song was featured on World Star Hip Hop but she received multiple hate comments, claiming her hair was “ugly and unruly.”

In response, Exmiranda challenged her followers to use her song to be unapologetically themselves. Recently, she has experimented with rapping in her indigenous language of Twi, which is only spoken by the Ashanti tribe of Ghana. Her music videos use a 90s vintage style and she often wears neon colors to compliment her elegant afro. In the COVID-19 pandemic, Exmiranda used TikTok to gain 60,000 followers and over 420,000 streams on Spotify.

“I’m never giving up,” Exmiranda said. “I’ve invested everything into my music, all my time, energy, and all the money from my day job. I want to make my brothers proud.”

While some new artists forged their own exclusively Black genres, others tried to emerge into the alternative music industry with their own unique styles. An example of such an artist is Rico Nasty, a Maryland rapper who mixes classic rap with punk, grunge, and metal. Her song “Smack a B*tch” landed her on the Billboard Top 100; however, her other songs that explore more of her punk and metal side have not gained as much traction. Today, she prides herself in pioneering her own style, which she calls “Sugar Trap.”

The snubs, erasure, and outright hatred that Black artists face is telling of the racism embedded in the music industry. However, from Rico Nasty’s “Sugar Trap” to Exmiranda’s incorporation of West African rhythms and language, Black alternative artists are using their music to express their pride, culture, and power amidst a system set against them.

Exmiranda

Kat Tsvirkunova

Since the end of the Civil War, African American actors and actresses alike have been underrepresented and misrepresented in the acting industry. Misrepresentation was seen early in the industry with the use of blackface, where white performers would darken their skin with substances like shoe polish and greasepaint. It peaked in prominence in the United States as calls for civil rights by newly emancipated slaves caused racial hostility. While the exact moment that blackface emerged is unknown, its origins go back to centuries-old performances of European theatrical works, most notably Shakespeare’s Othello.

Lincoln Perry

It was only in the year 1927, with the silent drama film In Old Kentucky, when the first Black actor appeared in an official Hollywood film. His name was Lincoln Perry, who later became known as the character of Stepin Fetchit, “a befuddled, mumbling, and shiftless fool.”

Perry’s portrayal of Stepin Fetchit was the Black stereotype that became a symbol of the negative side of the African-American experience.

By the mid-1930s, Black leaders began placing pressure on Hollywood to rid the screens of the stereotype Perry popularized in his role.

Hollywood Today

To this day, Black actors and actresses are stripped of jobs and opportunities in the acting business. According to Variety, former “Glee” actress Amber Riley previously recalled the moment a director told her in her early career that actors of color were “a little more disposable because that’s the way the world is.”

In her post-”Glee” career, Riley internalized the message to the extent that she was “distraught” going into auditions, struggling with anxiety and a lack of confidence.

Fellow “Glee” actress Samantha Ware revealed that the show’s star, Lea Michele, allegedly threatened to destroy her wig in 2015.

Riley’s support of Ware on social media led to Black actors alike reaching out with similar experiences, and prompted Riley to create #unMUTEny, a movement to “end Black silence in the entertainment industry, keep power structures responsible for undermining Black experiences and confront microaggressions with courage.”

Riley is not the only one speaking up about the need to boost black voices in Hollywood and elsewhere.

George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis in late May was a catalyst on an international scale, leading many Americans to organize and participate in protests and to advocate for reform of the law enforcement and criminal justice systems.

This movement has pervaded industries like Hollywood, whose controversial mega-corporations have taken the unprecedented step of releasing public statements condemning racism as thousands of Black artists have shared their experiences of discrimination in the workplace.

Hollywood itself is considered to be infused with white supremacy and a patriarchal culture. The issue now is whether

Hollywood, a city founded on the very premise of exclusivity and gatekeeping, will make its dedication to inclusion and amplify the voices of Black talent and other creatives of color as intended. When faced with slowing box office revenues in the country, Hollywood executives often privately argue

that movies starring minorities or addressing racial problems are a tougher sell in international markets, where they see the highest growth for their industry. But according to Box Office Mojo, the 2013 film “12 Years a Slave,” based on the memoirs of abolitionist and former slave Solomon Northup, was a success overseas with 70 percent of sales in foreign countries.

“Part of the problem is it’s an incredibly insular industry,” said Darnell Hunt, director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA. “The people who make decisions, who green-light projects, tend to surround themselves with people pretty much like themselves.”

But for these executives, he added, “it’s becoming harder and harder to bury their heads in the sand and pretend there’s not this demographic earthquake happening. At some point, it’s not going to be sustainable. They’re going to have to start making movies that people of all colors will want to see.”

While there is always room for improvement in the industry, it is important to look at what has already been achieved. Black actors and actresses are getting more chances to tell their truths on screen, and they are receiving more recognition from major awards like the Oscars than ever before.

Now, Black youth have the possibility to see inspiration of Black excellence and their struggles represented on screen in recent movies like Hidden Figures, Selma, and Moonlight.