A handful of black restaurants in OC are options for Black Restaurant Week – Orange County Register

Black Restaurant Week, an annual two-week event that focuses on black-owned restaurants and celebrates the cuisine of the African diaspora, kicks off this week in Los Angeles and runs from August 23 to September 1. Numerous restaurants offer discounts, special menu items and other culinary deals. Compared to LA’s thriving landscape of black-owned restaurants, food trucks and bakeries, Orange County has few.

Black businesses have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, according to a report from the House Small Business Committee. Between February and April 2020, the number of Black-owned businesses (primarily restaurants, food trucks and catering companies) fell by more than 40%, the largest decline of any racial group.

SEE ALSO: Black Restaurant Week in LA revives local gastronomy after the pandemic lull

But there are still a few places to eat in Orange County, from Texas-style barbecue to a drive-thru cafe. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but here are a few restaurants owned and operated by Black entrepreneurs that you should put on your restaurant radar immediately.

Abyssinia Restaurant (Anaheim): Ethiopian eatery serving dishes like awaze chicken tibs, kitfo (a beef tartare marinated in clarified butter), and vegetable sambusa with injera, a pliable flatbread made from teff. Don’t forget to grab a St. George beer to wash it all down. Everything is made from scratch at Abyssinia, which is part of the reason this Anaheim spot fills up very quickly, especially on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Reservations are highly recommended for groups of more than four. How to find it: 2801 W. Ball Road, Anaheim.

Beale’s Texas BBQ (Huntington Beach): At one of the few remaining black-owned barbecue joints in Huntington Beach (Hambone’s Bar and Grill closed in 2023), Santa Ana-native owner and grill master Brett Beale serves up some of the best barbecue around. Menu highlights include brisket, St. Louis spare ribs, rib tips, hot links, pulled pork and chicken. Not to be missed is Beale’s banana pudding, which has received high praise from food critic Brad A. Johnson, who described the 2020 dessert as “c)reamy, velvety, studded with vanilla wafers and banana slices.” Find it at: 16400 Pacific Coast Highway, Huntington Beach.

Hot Chicken with Roasted Chicken (Costa Mesa): Bred Hot Chicken, started as a food truck concept by Scott Kearse, also has a brick-and-mortar location at The Lab in Costa Mesa. Bred specializes in hot poultry, like spicy chicken nuggets, the Big O’ Sandwich (chicken sandwich with vinaigrette slaw, house-made pickles, comeback sauce on a toasted brioche bun), Chick N Waffles (thick Belgian waffles with butter and chicken tenders) and more. Don’t miss the four-cheese mac and cheese or the banana pudding with fresh banana slices and a chessman cookie on top. Find it: 2930 Bristol St., Costa Mesa.

Fork in the Road Catering (in Orange County and Los Angeles): Chef Kyle Powers (who founded Orange County-based restaurant Fork in the Road Catering with his wife, Marisa) has created dishes for the Anaheim Ducks, Mercedes-Benz, RipCurl, The Irvine Company, Vans Shoes and Apparel, and Swarovski, to name a few. Her seasonal California dishes include lobster rolls, house-made tortellini, mini hot chicken sliders, juniper-braised beef short ribs with goat cheese cream, tarragon and preserved lemon arancini, and blueberry lavender tarts. Find her at: @instagram.com/forkintheroadcatering.

Georgia’s Restaurant (Anaheim): Gretchen Shoemaker’s restaurants, with locations in OC in the Anaheim Packing District and Irvine Spectrum, specialize in soul food. Before opening her successful restaurants, she cooked in the kitchen of her Lake Forest home for her family and for a catering business she started in the mid-1970s. Today, guests can enjoy the same dishes she created nearly 50 years ago, like fried green tomatoes with lemon aioli, sweet potato fries, blackened catfish, chicken and waffles, gumbo, shrimp and grits, po’boys and peach pie, to name a few. Shoemaker also has locations in Long Beach and the Eastside. Find it: 440 S. Anaheim Blvd, Anaheim; 732 Spectrum Center Drive, Irvine.

Lynda’s African Delicatessen (Irvine): Lynda started her food business in her home kitchen in Irvine, where she ran a successful hair braiding business, sharing her home-cooked meals with clients and friends. Today, she has turned that small hospitality venture into a full-fledged business—a food truck, to be exact—serving dishes like jollof rice (with beef, lamb, shrimp, and oxtail), fufu and egusi, noodles, pepper beef, savory yet slightly sweet meat pies, moi moi (crayfish cakes), and more. Open Saturdays from 12pm-8pm. Also available for catering. Find us at: 17985 Sky Park Circle, Building 40, Irvine.

McClain Cellars (Irvine, Laguna Beach): With two tasting rooms in Laguna Beach (one on Forest Avenue and the other on Laguna Canyon Road) as well as a storefront in Irvine, Jason and Sofia McClain’s wine company offers thirsty wine lovers a modern-industrial space to taste wine at one of the few Black-owned wineries in the country. McClain Cellars also offers a private label manufacturing service for aspiring wine entrepreneurs. Find it: 849 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach; 381 Forest Ave, Laguna Beach; 16 Technology Drive, Irvine.

Poppy & Seeds (Anaheim): Helmed by chef Michael Reed (nominated for James Beard Best Chef: California) and Kwini Reed (California Restaurant Association board member), the power couple’s Anaheim restaurant, a second edition of their original Poppy & Rose in DTLA, features dishes like tea-smoked Scottish salmon, scallops, creamy potato espuma and semi-smoked duck. Plant-based offerings include butternut squash ravioli and baby carrot and peach salad, to name a few. Come for the food and stay for the 1,000-square-foot greenhouse with 3,000-square-foot patio. How to find it: 350 S Anaheim Blvd, Anaheim.