South-east London venue set to host street food and shopping event on September 14 and 15
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Black Eats was born from a hobby.
Working at a marketing agency, Jackson Mclarty enjoyed lunches and dinners with clients.
Outside office hours, he liked visiting restaurants, bars and cafes – posting his favourites to social media as many do.
But that changed in 2020.
“During the pandemic, we had the George Floyd incident in the US and the Black Lives Matter movement that emerged,” said Jackson.
“I was trying to support local, black-owned businesses as much as I could with my own personal spending.
“But I thought that, if I could encourage other people, then that would have a greater impact.
“So that’s why I created Black Eats as a directory – a place to educate and share information with people on where to go.
“I wanted them to know that they didn’t have to order online, that they could just go down the road and get food from a local supplier.
“We started with 100 restaurants in August 2020 – it seems such a long time ago now.
“At the time the Government’s Eat Out To Help Out scheme was offering 50% off and we launched a marketing campaign for the 45 businesses listed on Black Eats that were participating.
“That provided an incentive for people to visit those restaurants – we were saying: ‘Go on, try something new, get out of the house’.
“There was no financial benefit for me, I wasn’t gaining anything – it was just about educating people, which is the first step for anything.”
so what then for Black Eats?
The next step – building on the directory – was telling more people about it. Jackson increasingly used social media to promote black-owned hospitality businesses and generate an audience.
Today that stands at more than 70,000 followers and a directory of just over 500 restaurants.
However, the online presence was not an end in itself. Jackson had added a second string to Black Eats’ bow in 2021 by entering the world of live events.
“With the first Black Eats Fest in Hackney, I was going into unknown territory, I’d never run anything like that before,” he said.
“I hadn’t even put up a gazebo. All I had was an audience – customers – and a concept.
“It was a massive risk, but I had a vision of what I wanted to execute and I was going to find out how to do it.
“At that first event, we had something like 25 traders and 2,000 ticket registrations across the weekend.
“That’s quite small compared to where we are now, but it felt impressive.”
Solid growth and success then saw two things happen.
Firstly, Jackson was able to leave his day job and focus full-time on Black Eats and, secondly, crowds of up to 15,000 people meant the live events needed to expand beyond Bohemia Market’s capacity to accommodate the footfall.
the right location
“For what we do, we had to look for a very particular space,” said Jackson.
“For us, having food of the correct quality means having an outdoor space so dishes can be cooked fresh.
“When you come to Black Eats Fest, you’re going to see the barbecues, the jerk pans and the fryers – all these different delights from different countries made right there.
“Woolwich Works is perfect because we have the courtyard, but there’s also indoor seating just in case we get attacked by rain.
“We never push the venue to full capacity, because we want the festival to be a place people can move around easily, so that they can try four or five different things over the four hours.
“There is real warmth in a carnival atmosphere where people are shoulder to shoulder, but this is a food festival and we want guests to be able to get around more easily than that.
“There’s so much to try.
“Back in June we had a Zimbabwean barbecue, a couple of jerk chicken vendors, a couple of Nigerian vendors, Guadelupean cuisine, Ethiopian cuisine and so much more.
“There are bars serving cocktails, one stall was doing drinks in pineapples and the cane juice was flowing.
“However Black Eats Fest also goes beyond food – there’s a whole cultural celebration.
“We have black-owned businesses selling everything from skincare to clothing, art, educational books and sunglasses.
“We try to be as diverse as possible, because we don’t want our visitors to see 10 of the same thing and the brands don’t want to be competing.
“It’s about people interacting with their customers – that’s what we really love.
“The whole point is to not be like a typical market or event where people come and it’s just transactional – a financial relationship.
“We want people to come here and feel fulfilled. Right now, those coming to Black Eats Fest will find around 15 food vendors and plenty of other businesses.
“It’s about coming and having an experience.”
expansion and growth
While the popularity of Black Eats Fest itself seems assured, its parent organisation is also in fine fettle.
Black Eats – alongside championing the businesses in its directory – has also diversified into supplying traders for events and this year sent businesses to some 10 festivals in two weeks, including the likes of Wireless and UK Black Pride.
“Running events around the UK would be the next step – we could do my home town of Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Sheffield,” said Jackson, who has relocated to Woolwich from north London.
“We need to find the right spaces and balance of traders, but that would be great.
“Then we’d love to look at major European cities like Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin.”
From there, who knows…
key details: Black Eats Fest
Black Eats Fest returns to Woolwich Works from September 14-15. Each day features two sessions – from noon-4pm for families and from 5pm-9pm for over 18s.
Tickets cost £16.50 and are available on Black Eats website.
Sign up for the mailing list to access the early bird drop (£3 off) or follow @blackeatsldn on Insta.
Previous events have sold out, so stay sharp.
Find out more about the event here
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- Jon Massey is co-founder and editorial director of Wharf Life and writes about a wide range of subjects in Canary Wharf, Docklands and east London - contact via jon.massey@wharf-life.com
