Three Wisconsin eateries received $20,000 apiece from food giant Heinz’s Black Kitchen Initiative, which aims to help Black-owned food enterprises.
Anomalous and Blake Campbell, husband-and-wife cooks and founders of Anomaly Catering, couldn’t wait for the cash. The couple faced various challenges when they opened their restaurant, Yo’ Mama’s Kitchen, on Teutonia Avenue in Milwaukee.
Thieves broke into the building 30 days after its September grand opening, removing “almost everything except for the walls,” according to Anomalous Campbell.
A week later, an SUV plowed into the building, which the city ultimately condemned.
“It’s been a journey,” Campbell explained.
The Campbells are looking for a new location, but they intend to utilize the grant money to support their kids culinary education program, Gastronomy Art Studio, as well as to sustain their catering business. Initially, the funding was intended to finish the construction of their now-condemned structure.
“We will definitely use the funding to get us back on track,” said Campbell, who founded Anomaly Catering in 2019.
The Campbells are one of three Wisconsin restaurants to receive money from the Black Kitchen Initiative. The others included Chicago’s House of Hoagies in Menasha and Daddy’s Soul Food & Grille on Milwaukee’s west side.
The Black Kitchen Initiative provided $20,000 awards to 45 Black restaurants around the country, totaling $1 million. The effort is a collaboration between Heinz, Southern Restaurants for Racial Justice, and The LEE effort, a Kentucky-based group that develops and implements initiatives addressing diversity and equality concerns in the food business.
The project seeks to sustain Black food enterprises while also preserving the legacy of Black food in America. The grant money can be used for a variety of purposes, such as restaurant renovations, marketing, staff development, purchasing new equipment, expanding the menu, or sponsoring children culinary arts programs.
The Campbells are currently focusing on their catering business and the young cooking program. Both work out of a commercial kitchen in Cudahy until they can get a new home-based kitchen. Since 2021, the Gastronomy Art Studio has been teaching children aged 15 to 19 about the science, heritage, and culture of cooking.
Students study the principles of cooking, such as how to dehydrate herbs to generate seasonings, as well as how culinary procedures and chemical reactions produce certain cuisines. They learn food safety and can obtain certification in food handling. In addition, they are compensated financially for their participation.
Over 200 students have completed the program, and three are currently employed by the catering company.
“It’s kind of like just helping them advance in their culinary careers,” Campbell said, adding that the award will help sustain the program, which is funded by catering sales.
Daddy’s Soul Food & Grille has been providing southern-style cuisine for ten years. However, inflation has had an impact on the business, according to Angela Smith, who manages the restaurant’s finances while her husband, Bennie, manages the kitchen.
Smith stated that the restaurant is struggling due to high food prices, as is common in the business. Before the epidemic, food prices accounted for 30% of their budget. They’re now at 49%. She stated that this accounts for half of their revenue.
“That hits hard when you are a small business,” says Smith. “When I was told we got the grant, it just gave us a sigh of relief that we didn’t have to keep struggling from week to week.”
The couple plans to use the funds to strengthen their bottom line and purchase necessary kitchen equipment to support the catering part of the business. This will allow them to handle huge catering events, such as preparing hundreds of meals for Northcott Neighborhood House’s annual Thanksgiving celebration.
“Getting caterings of that magnitude obviously helps our business and it keeps our employees employed, keeps the lights on,” Smith told me.
In October, the pair relocated Daddy’s to 754 N. 27th St., closing their previous site at 6108 W. Blue Mound Road, which had opened during the epidemic.
“We couldn’t afford it anymore,” Smith explained.
Smith said she was honored to be chosen for the Black Kitchen Initiative.
“There’s plenty of restaurants out there that could have benefited from this and I’m just happy we were one of them,” she told me. “That relieved a lot of (Bennie’s) stress. Mine, too. “If we stay in the black, we should be fine.”