Skip navigation
In The Kitchen with Bret Thorn
restaurant-owners-in-the-kitchen.jpg
Kenny Frasch of Hop Knot in Manchester, N.H.; Carleen King of Carmi Soul Food in Pittsburgh; and Tamearra Dyson of Souley Vegan.

Black restaurateurs on ownership, racial justice

The operators of Souley Vegan in Oakland, Calif., Carmi Soul Food in Pittsburgh and Hop Knot in Manchester, N.H., share their observations of the racial justice movement

One of the highlights of last October’s virtual conference, Restaurants Rise powered by MUFSO, was a live version of the Restaurant Hospitality podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, in which I spoke with three Black restaurant operators who had worked to foster communities within their restaurants in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd and the reignition of the social justice movement that stemmed from that.

In a heartfelt discussion, Tamearra Dyson of Souley Vegan, a restaurant in Oakland, Calif., with ghost kitchens in Los Angeles, that offers meatless Louisiana Creole cuisine; Carleen King of Carmi Soul Food in Pittsburgh, serving traditional soul food with a large helping of community involvement; and Kenny Frasch of Hop Knot, a craft beer and pretzel bar in Manchester, N.H., and one of the only Black-owned restaurants in the state, discuss how they, their customers and their staff responded to the social changes wrought by the social activism that was reignited in the middle of the pandemic.

The full discussion can be watched here, and you can listen to the highlights in this podcast.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary

Hide comments

Comments

  • Allowed HTML tags: <em> <strong> <blockquote> <br> <p>

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Publish