MyBlack^® Career

The Black Chefs of The $600-Billion Dollar Industry

Source: Atlanta Post

Americans are a fussy folk. Even during wartime and a Great Recession, we refuse to resort to comfort foods — meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Instead, we demand nouveau cuisine even if acquiring it means digging deeper into the grocery freezer. We are also an eating-out nation. Restaurants in the U.S. are projected to earn $580 billion in sales on some 70 billion meals and snacks this year, according to the National Restaurant Association. On a typical day, 130 million Americans eat out, spending $1.6 billion. How much of this goes to black restaurateurs? Reportedly, 14% of first-line food service managers are black, while 4% of the nation’s restaurants are owned by African-Americans — comparatively few, but not an insignificant proportion. There is no accurate count of how much black restaurateurs rack up in sales, but a simple extrapolation gives an inkling of the billions in question: If black restaurateurs earn their fair share of the $580 billion spent by diners yearly, that would equate to roughly $23 billion, making food service one of the highest grossing black-owned industries. Where then are all the black chefs — and why are diners so hard-pressed to name more than one or two African American culinary stars? Have blacks finally forsaken the kitchen, leaving the stove and its longstanding legacy as a focal point of servitude for greener pastures?

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