How Do We Better Support Hill District Restaurants?

After coming home wrecked with no energy to cook, we got some very bland food tonight from the South Side that cost us nearly 40 bucks for four people, so I was going to blog tonight about how we need restaurants in the Hill open after 6 pm, since the closest one to us, Grandma B’s Cafe (scroll to page 3, to read about Grandma B’s) closes at 6 pm. However, my wife, Bonnie, reminded me that both Z Best and Mr. D’s are open after 6 o’clock, so it got me to wondering why we didn’t think of going to Z Best? (We’re partial to Black cooking and ownership.) I wonder if in addition to the fact that our brains were fried, it has anything to do with the need for better signage for place like Z Best, so that you are reminded of it every time you drive by it? If business is location, location, location, maybe I would have thought of the restaurant were it on Centre Ave? Maybe if Grandma B’s had a more visible location like Centre, it could stay open later (will ask the owner, Nafees Bin Muhammad, since they may close at that earlier hour by choice).Obviously, I need to be more disciplined in my thinking so as to better support Hill District businesses, but every little nudge helps.

On a related matter, I got an email today that the Hill District Community Development Corporation is having a community meeting on November 15th at 6 pm and that Centre Ave Development is one of the items for which there will be an update. I haven’t seen anything to say restaurants are on the menu for this first phase, but I sure would like it if they were and it would be great if there was the possibility for the neighborhood’s current restaurants to move to Centre Ave, so they could take advantage of the new energy coming, a more visible place and we could better support them.

Update: I spoke with Brother Ahmad, the cook at Grandma B’s Cafe, and he said it is due to the decline of business in the evening that they close at 6 pm and that they would look forward to opportunities to expand to Centre Ave, while keeping the base at Wylie (which is good for us on Wylie).