Black business owners are marking the Juneteenth holiday with gratitude and in remembrance of the generations who came before them.
At City Foundry STL, three restaurateurs are giving homage to their mothers and grandmothers for imparting a legacy that manifests itself in the food they serve up for their customers and in their own homes.
“Juneteenth is just another way to celebrate our culture, where we came from – and the food,” said Pat Upchurch, head baker and owner of Patty’s Cheesecakes. “Food brings people together, it binds us together, not just in the African American and Black culture, for all other ethnicities, too.”
Upchurch says everything her family does is centered around food.
“That’s how everyone came to our table,” she said. “There was always somebody at our table, not just family, but also a neighbor or a friend – the table was a community.”
Upchurch says gathering at the table is a way of carrying on her grandmother’s legacy, which also includes the famous cheesecake recipe now used at Patty’s Cheesecakes. The popular dessert destination at the food hall is known for its signature cheesecake and a rotating selection of seasonal cheesecake flavors, as well as cookie and brownie sandwiches, pies and more.
“My grandmother was person who made all the desserts in the family,” Upchurch said. “As she got older and she couldn’t make the desserts anymore, she gave me her recipes, including the cheesecake recipe. I’m the person now who’s in charge of all desserts in the family.”
Grandmothers also played a major role for Brandi Artis and her calling as a chef. Artis, the co-owner and executive chef of 4 Hens Creole Kitchen, remembers falling in love with cooking as a young girl in her grandmothers’ kitchens.
“My grandmothers taught me everything I know about cooking,” Artis said. “My grandmas were the passers-on of recipes. It is from them that I have this knowledge, this love and passion for food.”
Artis, who is Black and Lebanese, draws her inspiration and ideas from traditional Creole food and other global flavors, which she enhances with her signature twist. She offers an array of house-made sauces – from sweet cream to ranch to creole cream to dirty mustard to remoulade to kick’n ketchup – to drizzle on 4 Hens specialty items such as Creole Toast, Fried Green Tomatoes, Chicken Dawlins and Shrimp n’ Grits.
“You place flavors that are reminiscent to you that are immediate and sometimes not always immediate,” Artis said. “You have to pay homage what was there in the past, the flavors that were there … Spanish, Creole, West Indies … there are all these things that feed into New Orleans cuisine that are ancestral.”
While both her grandmothers have since passed, Artis says her connection with them remains strong and is sometimes revealed in unexpected ways.
“My grandfather still sends me recipes that he finds to this day,” Artis said. “I just received a package filled with clippings of recipes that my grandmother had either written or found that she wanted to try. Every time he finds something, he sends them to me.”
At Chez Ali, where owner Alioun Thiam serves food influenced by Afro-Caribbean flavors from his childhood, the signature offerings are also the most popular: Jerk Chicken, Red Beans & Rice, samosas and thieboudienne, a Senegalese dish made with rice, fish and vegetables.
Born in Ivory Coast to Senegalese parents, Thiam, who goes by “Chef Ali,” started his first restaurant in St. Louis 10 years ago. In summer 2021, his namesake eatery, Chez Ali, was among the first introduced at City Foundry.
Thiam will be the first to admit he never cooked “back home,” but watching his mom in the kitchen informs much of what he does in his own kitchen today.
“Part of the culture there is the females cook, so it was mostly my mom, sisters, aunts,” he said. “When I decided to cook, I spent time practicing, making sure the ingredients and everything were just right.”
Just like many who belong in the African diaspora, Thiam grew up within a culture that was centered on food and sitting down to a meal.
“For example, at lunchtime, we would sit down to a big bowl of food, five or six people eating together,” he said.
It is this sense of community that Thiam hopes will fuel Juneteenth celebrations here in St. Louis.
“I will be participating in Juneteenth activities in the community – there are a lot of events here in June,” he said. “I’ve been doing it for a long time, just to go and represent.”
Upchurch, too, is looking forward to the holiday, ready with her specialty desserts, including red velvet cake, which has become part of her family’s annual tradition.
“We do cake and cheesecake – and a lot of food,” she said. “We look forward to the celebration!”
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