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The pandemic was crushing for many Black-owned businesses around the country, and the years since 2020 have been especially hard on restaurants locally and nationwide — but there are exceptions.
After starting as a takeout joint in what owner Candi Dailey calls “a hole in the wall” in Bowie, Maryland, her restaurant, Ruby’s Southern Comfort Kitchen, found itself moving to a much bigger spot where you can sit down and enjoy your food, rather than having to drive out of the way just to pick it up and take it home.
“But I’d like to say that we’re still a takeout, right? There’s no waitstaff here,” Dailey pointed out. She started Ruby’s as a restaurant that operated with the catering company her family owns and operates.
“What we noticed is that, at our old location, people wanted to sit down even though it was takeout. But we only had like four seats in there. But people always wanted to sit,” Dailey said.
“And so we knew that when we moved we wanted people to be able to sit down if they wanted to. And so it still works in the same way. If you come in here at lunchtime, or in the evening, you’re going to see a crowd full of people that are just sitting down, enjoying one another’s fellowship and breaking bread,” she said.
But getting to that location, which moved from an out of the way spot to a much bigger store front next to stores like Target and Lowes, just off Routes 301 and 50 in Bowie, meant taking a big risk, and making a much bigger monthly rent payment.
“We believe that this is something that the community wanted, and that takeout didn’t have to be a hole in the wall. And so how do we bring that vision to life? Honestly, it took us like two years, a long time, and a lot of money and a lot of red tape to get this to be what we thought takeout could be,” she said.
She’s not ready to say they’ve made it all the way through the pandemic yet.
“The cost of building it out was a lot more than we expected, and just the challenges as a small, Black entrepreneur, trying to obtain financing, that has its own challenges,” she said.
Dailey said that the restaurant business can be tumultuous and all they could do was hope that things would work out in the end.
The one thing Dailey feels like they have is the support from the neighboring community. She saw it firsthand after people went out of their way to show her support in the years prior to and during the pandemic.
“We want guests that feel like they’re family when they come in. Ruby was my grandmother. She kind of had this open door policy,” Dailey said.
“My parents did the same thing. They’re going to take care of their neighbors. … And I think Ruby’s is just an extension of still opening the door, still welcoming the community and supporting where we can,” she added.
Every year around Juneteenth, Ruby’s holds what it calls its “Family Reunion.” It’s really an event to say thanks to the customers who fill up on its Southern-style comfort food. Dailey said that last year about 18,000 people registered and attended.
“The DMV area in general … it’s different here,” she said. “You feel like you can thrive here. You feel like you can do more here. The community is extremely supportive here.”
Dailey admits that she doesn’t think they would get the same support and appreciation from the community anywhere else in the country.
“But I think we have a really authentic connection with the community,” she said.
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