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South Side Restaurants Shine At Inaugural Black Chicago Eats Awards

See the list of winners and discover a new restaurant

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MacArthur’s Restaurant
Yelp
Ashok Selvam is the editor of Eater Chicago and a native Chicagoan armed with more than two decades of award-winning journalism. Now covering the world of restaurants and food, his nut graphs are super nutty.

Though they didn’t have an original award show as planned, Black Chicago Eats on Friday named the winners of its first Everybody Eats Foodie Awards. The organization spotlights African-American-owned restaurants, and on Aug. 19 Black Chicago Eats successfully held its first Taste of Black Chicago and drew a crowd of about 4,000 to the festival grounds in the South Shore. For the awards, the public cast their votes online and there were 10 categories.

Winners include Frontera Grill managing chef Richard James for “Best Black Chef,” That’s a Burger in Avalon Park for “Best Burger at Black-Owned Restaurant,” and MacArthur's Restaurant in South Austin (a favorite of President Barack Obama’s) for “Best Black-Owned Soul Food Restaurant.”

Many of these restaurants are on the South and West sides and don’t receive the attention they deserve. Organizers said that not only hurts from a pride perspective, as locals in those areas feel neglected, but it also hurts on the business side. Chefs at those restaurants creating tasty food never make as much money as their counterparts working in different areas. Meanwhile, Chicagoans unaware of these restaurants don’t get to try new foods.

Watch Toure Muhammad of Black Chicago Eats and Bean Soup Times announce the awards below:

Announcing the winners of the Black Chicago Eats Foodie Awards 2017

Posted by Black Chicago Eats on Friday, August 25, 2017

Here’s the full list of winners:

Batter & Berries

2748 North Lincoln Avenue, , IL 60614 (773) 248-7710 Visit Website

Bar Sotano

445 North Clark Street, , IL 60610 (312) 391-5857 Visit Website

Brown Sugar Bakery

328 East 75th Street, , IL 60619 (773) 224-6262 Visit Website