Bring yo' ass (to a Black-owned restaurant)

Minneapolis is city with few Black-owned restaurants-- which means they matter even more.

When I first spotted the socials ablaze around the Charles Barkley ‘Bring Yo Ass’ brouhaha, I admit that my eyes mostly glossed over. I don’t follow sportsballs— though I know who Charles Barkely is because I live on earth— it didn’t concern me much where he might want to eat when he’s in Minneapolis. It didn’t concern me, that is, aside from this initial thought: “I’ll bet I won’t see a Black-owned restaurant on these recommendations.”

No, Minneapolis doesn’t have very many Black-owned spots. Yes, we do however have some good ones. 

I think it’s important to make people feel at home when they visit from out of town, while simultaneously highlighting what’s unique about us. This is a delicate balance in a restaurant recommendation list. But I call it hospitality. 

A good restaurant rec list shouldn’t just be about what you like exclusively— though a couple of those should be included. It shouldn’t simply include what we’re known for, but there should be a couple of those as well. And it shouldn’t only be all about what the diner might like, or what we assume they might like, though there should be a couple of those, too. There’s an art to it.

Now, I don’t know what Charles Barkley considers a “good restaurant,” but he did ask for a list of “good restaurants,” as he was going to be in town for five days. If I’m offering a list of “good restaurants,” which I’m often asked for, I start by considering my audience first. 

I recently entertained a Mexican resident who was desperate for some Southeast Asian food because he can’t get a lot of it in Mexico City where he lives. We got that! I recommended Gai Noi, Hai Hai, Kim’s, and ordered some straightforward mom & pop Vietnamese from The Lotus, my fave, for lunch. We also took him to Butcher’s Tale because dude has a meatlust, and to Oro, because he’s Mexican, and we wanted to show off our uniquely Minneapolis Mexican stylings. We went to Stepchld because we wanted to illustrate that Minneapolis has diversity (and Gallant Tigers!)

It was a very good list, if I don’t say so myself. 

It would have been interesting (and wise) if Anthony “Ant” Edwards had asked Mr. Barkley what he thinks constitutes a “good restaurant,” as well as getting some other details about what Mr. Barkley might have been craving while he was in town, but to our common knowledge, he did not. 

I know what a “good restaurant” is. I travel the world eating at them, and I tend to know what their markers are. From the most humble (yet famous) market stall in Oaxaca to the glittering rooftops of Dubai, I can tell a good restaurant from a bad one in just about the flick of a waiter’s wrist dropping a menu on my table. 

But what are these markers, and who gets to be the decider? 

Minneapolis has good restaurants. Many of them are not as good as what you’re going to find in larger cities, this is just the truth, but some of them are. 

But Minneapolis also has a uniqueness. A flavor all its own, and this is what I would like to show an outsider, along with extending some of that hospitality I spoke about earlier. When you travel very much, and I do, you both want to get what’s unique to a specific place on the road, and sometimes you also just need some comfort. I imagine Mr. Barkley travels very much, and probably feels a bit like I do. 

Is a “good restaurant” a standard American Steakhouse? Every large city has a plethora, and it matters not whether you’re in Minneapolis or Miami, you’re going to be able to find at least one, if not several. But what would a standard American steakhouse tell someone like Charles Barkley about our town? Nothing. Not shit. 

Charles Barkley has been in more steakhouses last year than any of us will likely see in our lifetimes. He can brandish his Mastercard Black all over Manny’s until pure dry-aged beefs flow from the very canals of his ears. So, what? He’s not likely to remember it next week.

Manny’s is too cliche a place to send a basketball player, and even if he would like it (and apparently he does), it’s low-hanging fruit.

Next?

Charles Barkley is a Black man, a very prominent one, and while I have no clue whether he gives a starched napkin about Black-owned restaurants or not, Minneapolis does not have very many, and neither does any other American city, which is precisely why they should be sought out.

The reasons why there are not very many are rooted firmly in racism. Black women own fewer than one percent of all American restaurants in spite of Black women being architects of the American kitchen. I’m becoming a bit of an expert on this subject because I am a Black woman in the restaurant business and I have taken to making facts like these my business.

You should seek out Black-owned restaurants not simply because they are Black-owned, but because they are good. And even if they are very, very good, they are not likely to have the same resources (read: publicity) behind them as a similarly good (or even a less good) white-owned establishment. So, seek them out. You may find a good, or even a very, very, very good restaurant for your trouble.

So, when I finally I got tired of glancing yet another list of restos for Mr. Barkley without Black-owned spots mentioned on them,* I simply made mention of that on a Minnesota Public Radio Facebook thread about the matter. 

In short order, a troll named Aaron Michal Scherbel clapped back:

“C’mon Mecca. You know a lot of the most famous restaurants in the TC are not owned by minorities (although that may very well change in the near future). That doesn’t make them not worth visiting and doesn’t mean the black-owned establishments aren’t also great. Not everything has to turn into a race war as much as you might like it to.” 

As a person concerned with words, I had to look up the term “race war,” because truth be told I’m not sure what one is, unless you consider America. I think America has always been a race war, if you consider the genocide and four centuries of race-based forced labor and subsequent ethnocide that it’s built upon. 

I think Trump and his cronies have pretty obviously fired up a race war. And the tiki torch boys in Charlottesville. They might have been trying to start a race war. But I don’t think I live in the same bucket with those people. 

But did I bring race into a conversation about Minneapolis restaurants, especially as it pertains to where a prominent Black man might dine in my city, and I stand by the importance of doing so.

If you happen to be Black in this country, which Mr. Barkley and I are, and if you happen to be Black in this country and care about restaurants, which Mr. Barkley and I do, the ownership of the restaurants we eat in does in fact enter our minds from time to time.

Is it top of mind? Not always. But it does become a factor, when fewer than 10 percent of all restaurants in the United States are in fact Black-owned. Sometimes we want to support our people, and sometimes we just want to be with our people.

I have dined in pretty much every Twin Cities restaurant that is considered a “good restaurant,” certainly the sorts that tend to make Top 10 lists, the kinds that feature white male chefs and deep-pocketed investors who pour millions into their development. They can be very good restaurants. The food is “good” (nearly always Eurocentric), the service can be good (but isn’t, always), and the dining rooms are very pretty (usually). 

They are also almost always very white. I can cast about, turning my head in every direction until it all but falls off of my shoulders and rolls to the floor, and I still rarely spot a brown face aside from my own, whether in the dining room or in the kitchen (unless we are talking dishwashers, who are almost always Latine).

Is this a problem? Yes, I think it’s a problem. I even wrote an article about this problem for The New York Times, in 2020, the same year that George Floyd was murdered. Why is there a correlation between George Floyd’s murder and the lack of Black-owned food business? Well, the way myself and some BIPOC Twin Cities restaurateurs saw it, racial imbalances matter— whether we are talking about access to enterprise, or a cop’s knee on your neck.

When my troll, Mr. Scherebel, quips, “C’mon Mecca, You know a lot of the most famous restaurants in the TC are not owned by minorities,” he’s unaware how much he’s packing into his trolling.

First, and perhaps most innocuously, he’s assuming Mr. Barkley wants our “most famous” restaurants. By that standard, we could in fact be sending Barkley to a very bad restaurant. “Most famous” does not in fact equal “good.” By this standard, McDonald’s is the best restaurant in the world.

But beyond mere semantics, Scherbel’s ignorance wrapped in microaggression is precisely the brand of racism that makes Minnesota the second worst place to live in the country if you’re Black, as measured by access to employment, access to housing, the education gap, and incarceration rates per capita.

I absolutely think there is a correlation between our low number of Black-owned restaurants, and all of the other factors that make Minneapolis a very bad place to live if you are Black.

Many of our “good,” “most famous,” or simply “existing” restaurants are not owned by “minorities” and this is exactly the point. Minneapolis is a place that makes life incredibly difficult for Black people, in a country that makes life incredibly difficult for Black people. 

This is all the more reason why Charles Barkley should consider dining in at least one of the Black-owned restaurants that we do have when he visits Minneapolis.

And why we, as Minneapolis ambassadors, should make it our job to recommend them.

*After some research, I did find two local publications that mentioned Black-owned spots on their Barkley rec lists. Shout out to the Pioneer Press for mentioning two, Afro Deli and West Indies Soul.

Good Black-Owned Minneapolis Restaurants:

Stepchld
It takes a lot to get a restaurant to sit on one of my own “favorite” lists. Great food, yes, but that’s not enough. There also has to be sa pot-on mix of excellent but also friendly service, a great playlist, a beautiful or at least interesting room, all melding into a hospitality that keeps me returning. Stepchld is truly just that sort of chimera, one of the best, yet under-sung spots in the Twin Cities. It’s without category (bone marrow shares space with tacos) freewheeling, fun, and done right. Charles wouldn’t soon forget this one.

Pimento
Every time I eat at Pimento, I’m glad I did. Jamaican or Caribbean food is understandably difficult to find in Minnesota, which makes Pimento such a fresh puff of smoky jerk. Owner Tomme Beevas is a total mensch— a host in the true sense, and it’s thrilling to watch his tiny Nicollet Avenue spot expand into a mini empire, spilling into the Bde Mka Ska pavilion (the coolest thing to happen to the chain of lakes since the lake’s name change back to its original in Dakota) as well as downtown St. Paul. Don’t miss the Nicollet location’s adjacent rum bar with patio for tropical drinks, reggae, and irie vibes.

Soul Bowl (+budding empire)
When I’m in the mood for some real deal southern cooking, Soul Bowl is the first on my list. Gerard and Brittany Klass put a ton of detail into the cooking that comes out of their their counter service spot inside off Graze Food Hall in the North Loop— and bonus— you can also hit up Union Hmong Kitchen here, one of Minneapolis’ other glittering food gems. There’s a bar anchoring the food hall, so you don’t have to miss out on libations or vibes when you visit. The Klass’ have been super busy opening new concepts, including Klassics Kitchen and Cocktails, right next to The Guthrie Theatre downtown, and even more interestingly, Camden Social, in our city’s Blackest part of town, North Minneapolis.

Justin Sutherland Anything
Not every smallish city has nationally recognizable celebrity chefs, but we have a handful, and Justin Sutherland is one of them. He’s everywhere these days, just hit Google and he’s on just about every food TV show there is. While he recently stepped away from his most well-know spot Handsome Hog after seven years, his egg sandwich spot is worth a look, as well as Northern Soul, his restaurant in the MSP airport. Slide through and grab a buttermilk chicken sammich for the plane.

East African Anything
If a visitor is truly looking to understand Minnesota food culture, then they must at least touch on our large East African populations and their contributions to our local flavor. Beloved Ethiopian institution Fasika recently closed after more than 20 years in the injera and tibs business, but plenty of other places can respectably offer a wide variety of tastes. Afro Deli is the easiest choice for beginners (as well as the experienced) with its Chipotle-style of point-and-order counter-style service. Ask to double up on the green sauce. Or, just dial up “Ethiopian,” “Somali,” or “East African” on your Yelp, and hop on over to the closest storefront to wherever you might be standing.

Try something new. Try something truly Minneapolis.