Chev
I can still remember as a kid going out with my family to Sunday dinners (often after church) to different Soul Food restaurants around the city.
There were so many to choose from.
My father would take us to different ones and you didn't have to worry about people cussing, fighting, or act a fool around you and your family.
In many AfroAmerican communities today there are no or very few actual "sit down" restaurants PERIOD whether you're talking about Soul Food, Chinese, or fast food. Most of them are designed for you to walk in or drive up, place your order and pay, get the food, and LEAVE.
The message they're sending the customers is: Get your shit and get up out of here.....Lol.
Most of the sit down and relax, customer service oriented restaurants today are only the fancy restaurants like Ruth Chris.
I think most AfroAmerican youth (25 and under) are missing out on a LOT of amenities that used to be taken for granted in our culture. Most of them don't know what it's like to go to a Black establishment and get waited on by Black people with a smile and eat food cooked with love from ANOTHER Black person.
I still remember the old greasy spoons in Detroit that were Black owned and Black ran. Early in the morning as early as 6am or 7am Black folks heading to work in the morning would stop in these joints for a full breakfast of grits, eggs, coffee, pancakes, ect.....and meet up with eachother.
I'm getting hungry just THINKING about them!
I don't know if you remember but there was movie back in the 80s called the BLUES BROTHERS in which Aretha Franklin portrayed a waitress in a greasy spoon while performing the song "You better think". I remember Black waitresses like that who would call everybody "baby" and put a lot of SOUL in serving their customers.
You don't see that today.
You see Black youth walking around eating pizza or chili fries most likely made by someone who does NOT look like them or give a damn about them.