A weeklong event looking to increase support and visibility for local Black-owned restaurants only features one business east of the Anacostia River, which has the city’s largest population of Black residents. And that restaurant, Busboys and Poets, isn’t Black-owned.

The third-annual DMV Black Restaurant Week is underway, with the support of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. The event, which lasts from November 8-15, encourages patrons to frequent local Black-owned restaurants and foodservice providers, as well as allied establishments. Businesses on the list provide a mix of discounts and multi-course meals that typically wouldn’t appear on the menu.

This year’s list features 85 restaurants in the D.C. area, but only includes one restaurant in Ward 8 and none in Ward 7 — approximately 92% of the population of both wards is Black, per DC Health Matters. Busboys and Poets, which has an Anacostia location, is on the list.

Dr. Erinn Tucker, one of the three co-founders of DMV Black Restaurant Week and a Ward 7 resident, says that while Busboys is not Black-owned, it is the only allied partner on the list.

“[Busboys and Poets] understood and supported our mission, while also having the measurements and training for implicit and explicit racial bias training,” says Tucker.

She says the list reflects the low number of restaurants and food providers in wards 7 and 8 that signed up to participate, adding that previous years have lacked substantial east of the river representation too. This year, the team planned outreach that was canceled due to COVID, like a festival slated for June.

Tucker says there are future plans and partnerships to come in that part of the city, which also has fewer restaurants overall compared to the rest of D.C.

Conversations with owners of Black businesses in Ward 7 and Ward 8 show differing reasons for not joining DMV Black Restaurant Week this year.

Peter Opare, chef and owner of Open Crumb, an African cuisine restaurant in Anacostia, says he didn’t take part because he doesn’t want to discount menu items by 10-15%, which he thought was a requirement for participating businesses.

“We purposely made sure to offer items so that pretty much anyone could afford it,” says Opare, giving the example of Open Crumb’s $5 fried chicken sandwich. Discounts are especially tough to offer right now because the business has been hit financially since the COVID-19 health crisis.

But Tucker says the discount is flexible for some businesses. “We work with business owners all the time. We know their struggles,” she says. “If [businesses] want to work with us, we are here.”

Opare says he didn’t know this was an option and would’ve been interested if the discount was waived. Open Crumb can’t discount items by even 5% as it tries to stay afloat, he adds, because there’s been a decline in business during the pandemic. He attributes the drop to local customers experiencing unemployment and not being able to dine out as often, as well as less foot traffic.

“I make my own bread, and I would prep 50 bread buns every morning to be able to get through the day” before the pandemic, he says. “Right now, I go through 15, and that seems like it’s been a pretty good day.”

Tucker suggests that businesses take advantage of the free, year-round opportunities with DMV Black Restaurant Week.

“We’re not just a week — we function 365,” Tucker says. Businesses can become a member of the organization for free, which grants access to educational opportunities, networking, and promotion on the website and social media for Small Business Saturday. In 2020, the DMV Black Restaurant Week membership lasts for two years instead of one.

Meanwhile, Kory McNaughton, general manager of Pimento Grill in Benning Ridge, says he heard about DMV Black Restaurant Week, but the restaurant is “busy enough to turn down some offers.” He also is worried that, by having more patrons during the week, the food won’t be prepared at its highest quality.

He says the business is trying to keep up, and not lose the customers it already has. “It’s hard even managing this tiny little space, and we’re trying to maximize the best way we can,” McNaughton says. Though business is good, he says, it’s hard to keep up because the staff has been reduced from 10 employees to six during the pandemic.

In Anacostia, Everlasting Life Vegan Restaurant owner, Baruch Ben-Yehudah says he just missed the deadline, but plans to sign up next year.

And Tyrone White, owner of MLK Deli in Congress Heights, says he didn’t sign up because he saw vendor fees in previous years and didn’t look into the opportunity further in 2020.

“I feel like [DMV Black Restaurant Week] is good for advertising and promoting… but I just don’t want to pay a certain service fee,” he says.

This year, though, DMV Black Restaurant Week waived fees because business owners are struggling due to COVID-restrictions, says Tucker. She calls it part of an effort to be inclusive of all restaurants and food providers. The annual Food and Beverage Education Conference, another component to the week for restaurant personnel, was similarly free unlike prior years. It was also virtual rather than in-person.

The mayor’s office is celebrating DMV Black Restaurant Week, too. “Black-owned restaurants and foodservice providers continue to be critical to the vibrancy of our local economy and culinary landscape,” said Reverend Thomas Bowen, director of the Mayor’s Office on African American Affairs, in a press release.

While the pandemic has led to a series of closures for local establishments, this summer, amid protests calling out anti-Black racism and police violence in D.C., many Black-owned businesses saw a boost in business and were featured on local guides and lists.

But restaurants and food establishments are not equally distributed around the city — wards 7 and 8 have far fewer than the other wards west of the river. Despite a population of close to 160,000 residents, there are only a handful of full-service dining options.

That gap was visible on a map of the 428 restaurants who received city-funded grants to winterize — Ward 7’s Sala Thai was the only restaurant east of the river to receive one. City officials said that it was the only restaurant in Ward 7 or Ward 8 to apply.

In addition to Sala Thai, Ward 7 has Thai Orchid’s Kitchen and a Denny’s, which is Black-owned. (DMV Black Restaurant Week does not feature national chain restaurants.)

An anticipated Black-owned food hall, Market 7, hopes to offer more options for Ward 7 when it opens in 2021.

Ward 8 sit-down restaurants include IHOP, The Player’s Lounge, and Everlasting Life Restaurant, all of which are Black-owned, according to Washington City Paper. The IHOP was D.C.’s first Black-owned IHOP, according to the Pittsburgh Courier.

In previous years, Cheers @ Big Chair, another Black-owned business located in Anacostia, participated in DMV Black Restaurant Week. However, it closed its doors in 2019.

MLK Gateway, a development now under construction in Anacostia, has plans for a new restaurant, according to ANC 8A06 Commissioner Tyón Jones. That establishment would join the existing dining options on MLK Jr. Avenue SE such as Busboys and Poets, Mama’s Pizza Kitchen, and Starbucks, none of which are Black-owned.

In June 2019, Ward 7 Councilmember Vincent Gray and Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White co-introduced a bill that would provide start-up grants and loans to finance new eateries east of the river, as well as provide small business entrepreneurs with enterprise coaching, reported WUSA9.

In testimony in support of the bill, ANC 8C07 Commissioner, Salim Adofo, said it would allow employees and customers to dine east of the river, instead of commuting elsewhere, while also giving locals a place where they can meet up and discuss important matters. The bill is currently under council review.

Tucker says that she and the co-founders established DMV Black Restaurant Week following an incident of racial profiling against two young Black entrepreneurs at a Starbucks in Philadelphia. It prompted her to ask, “Where are our Black-owned food businesses that cater to the needs of their community?”