Memphis Black Restaurant Week will make its sixth annual run March 7-13, with the largest number of participating restaurants to date and new features to address the pandemic.

Event founder Cynthia Daniels says diners will be able to use delivery apps or curbside pickup to order meals from the 21 restaurants on this year’s lineup. 

Included on the list are well-known Memphis spots such as The Four Way, Uncle Lou’s Fried Chicken and Chef Tam’s Underground Café. Sage Restaurant and Mahogany Memphis will be back this year. And new contenders include Sugashack on Beale, Bala’s Bistro featuring both African and American dishes, and Bones and Yams in Cordova.

“Last year we had 12 restaurants,” Daniels said. “This is our biggest year to date. For me, it was important to get as many as possible because I knew how much people needed the business, coming out of the holidays and cold winter weather.”

Daniels launched the event in 2016. “I picked March because, you know Memphis weather. Now spring is peaking around the corner.”

An Atlanta native, Daniels said she noticed that Memphis had festivals to celebrate Italian, Jewish and Indian food but none devoted to Black food culture. “More people needed to know about these hidden treasures,” she said.

She located eight restaurants to participate the first year and got the word out on social media, hoping a couple of hundred people would find Black-owned restaurants they hadn’t known. “Over 3,000 supported that week, and I decided this will work,” she said.

Since dine-in options are limited, this year the Memphis Black Restaurant Week website will list the participants with links to their individual sites. Diners will be able to order and determine pickup or delivery options at each restaurant’s direction.

The City of Memphis office of Business Diversity and Compliance is a sponsor of Black Restaurant Week, and will “provide employment resources and training as we prepare for our largest week to date,” Daniels says.