A new Black Restaurant Week celebrates Memphis restaurants. Here's what to know.

A new restaurant week in Memphis is celebrating Black-owned restaurants.

Founded by Warren Luckett, Falayn Ferrell and Derek Robinson, Black Restaurant Week LLC started seven years ago to celebrate the flavors of African American, African and Caribbean cuisine with a series of regional cultural events. Since its launch in 2016, the organization has supported more than 2,000 restaurants nationwide.

The organization is bringing the program to Memphis for the first time. Black Restaurant Week Memphisjoins the nationwide tour, which runs Sept. 23-Oct. 2.

"Memphis has a dynamic culinary scene from barbecue to Southern delicacies," Ferrell said. "We knew it would be a great city to add to the Southeast region to amplify marketing efforts for local small businesses."

According to Black Restaurant Week, most businesses do not have marketing or advertising dollars to promote their business. Black Restaurant Week was developed to shine a light on minority businesses — aiding them in building community awareness to increase their bottom line.

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"Many restaurants across the nation are still recovering from the pandemic," Ferrell said. "In 2020, we restructured our campaigns to regional campaigns to help as many small businesses as possible. With the support of our corporate partners such as Grubhub Community Fund, we were able to increase our support of businesses from 600 to over 1,500."

Feast & Graze is one of the restaurants participating. "We wanted to be a part of this week to celebrate Black excellence, to show Memphis has different cuisines that are enjoyed by all," owner Cristina McCarter said. "And to bring people Downtown to our new storefront and showcase different menu items that we sell."

Butteriffic Bakery and Cafe will also be part of the new dining week. "I wanted to participate in Black Restaurant Week because it's a testament to the value of unity and support," owner Tameka Heard said. "Everyone is invited to support Black-owned businesses, and that's a beautiful thing."

There are just over 20 Memphis restaurants participating in the dining week, and most will offer specials.

Uncle Lou's Fried Chicken, Bala's Bistro, Artreanna’s Italian Ice, Ballhoggerz BBQ, Cupcake Cutie, Curry N Jerk, D’Bo’s Riverdale, East Memphis Pizza & Subs, Phoenix and Makeda’s Homemade Butter Cookies are just a handful of participating Memphis restaurants. The full list is available at blackrestaurantweeks.com.

Last year, Black Restaurant Week supported 1,200 Black-owned culinary businesses across the United States — including Toronto and Vancouver — and generated an average of 15% sales increase.

With the tagline "More than Just A Week," the hope for the dining week organizers and participants is that patrons will continue to support area Black-owned restaurants throughout the year.

And don't worry. The locally organized Memphis Black Restaurant Week will be held again in March for the eighth time. Memphis Black Restaurant Week is an annual dining week that was started by Memphian Cynthia Daniels in 2016. The 2023 dates will be March 5-11.

Jennifer Chandler is the Food & Dining Reporter at The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at jennifer.chandler@commercialappeal.com and you can follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @cookwjennifer. 

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Black Restaurant Week in Memphis: Restaurants, dates and what to know