With The Underground, Darryl’s owner Nia Grace opens a new door

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The restaurant was created through ACC’s new Neighborhood Business Nurturing Program, an initiative designed to empower local businesses, especially those owned by women and people of color. Northeast administrators say it is an appreciation that the university must use its deep pockets to support neighboring communities. And it’s one of several similar small business initiatives rolling out in the region’s universities this fall with a focus on diversity and inclusion.

The $ 153 million LightView dormitory – one of the first in a wave of privately funded Boston student dormitory projects – has been a hot spot in Roxbury for years. With 825 beds starting at around $ 1,300 a month, many neighbors feared it would drive rents up and displacements. The university argues that the creation of more dormitories will reduce the demand for existing housing in Roxbury. Either way, retail on the first floor would inevitably become the face of the building for the surrounding community.

Finding the right “dance partner” who would work for both college students and Roxbury is tantamount, said John Tobin, the university’s vice president on city and community engagement, especially after last summer’s race reckoning following George’s death Floyd and a push for local institutions to support color communities by diversifying the people they do business with.

“Everyone did their own self-calculation in light of the events of the past year, especially institutions like Northeastern,” said Tobin. “Sometimes you say, ‘How can we get better here and how do we really help our neighbors and work with our neighbors?'”

Grace – who along with owning Darryl’s also co-founded the Boston Black Hospitality Coalition – was an inspired choice, said Tobin; everyone at Northeastern knows their food. But it was Grace who helped shape the partnership that eventually led to the creation of ACC’s small business program, piloted in Boston.

Because when Northeastern first approached Grace, they suggested a pop-up restaurant where she cooks her food on the street and serves it on-site at the dormitory.

“It was fine, we run a full-service restaurant, and what you’re asking of us isn’t realistic, especially if you ask us seven days a week,” said Grace. She urged the university to invest in her and then do the same for other women and BIPOC business owners.

Ultimately, Northeast and ACC agreed to connect Grace with developers and designers to create a lasting space. Working with Grace led ACC to launch its new small business initiative, said Rae Pearson, a regional manager for the developer. She said they intend to use a similar model to involve other local small business owners in a second dormitory project they have planned at Northeastern.

“We put together a team of resources: planning, project management, marketing, and mentoring, whatever,” Pearson said. “The conversations we had with Nia directly led us to realize that we needed to do more to help small businesses support the prosperity and spending of generations” in the neighborhoods they build.

The company drafted a lease that would allow Grace to start working on free rent and then ramp up when her business takes off. Jessicah Pierre, communications director for the Black Economic Conference of Massachusetts, said it was the kind of support institutions like Northeastern should be providing.

“These universities have a responsibility to invest in our communities economically and culturally,” she said. “Especially for color students who want to keep in touch with people who look like them.”

Now you can buy Grace’s Cajun Tomato Flatbread, Red Velvet Waffles, and Seafood Gumbo for breakfast and lunch. The venue will host events in the space throughout the week, and its walls will serve as a rotating exhibition space for nonprofit youth art artists for humanity.

Grace said she was excited to serve both her community and the university.

“I’ve watched the neighborhood change drastically without being able to consult with those in power who are the real agenda or reasoning,” she said. With Northeastern’s reach, “I designed my first restaurant on this project. We have evolved from a pop-up to a real new brick and mortar. “

And other local universities are starting similar programs.

Across the river in Cambridge, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is taking a similar approach in its new Launchpad dining room at the Stratton Student Center. Through a partnership with the food incubator CommonWealth Kitchen, the university is now home to three immigrant-owned food companies: Bibim Bom, Las Palmasc and Carolicious. Together, MIT and CommonWealth worked with student representatives to choose the type of food they wanted. MIT rents the dining room to CommonWealth, which then sublets to restaurants, with rents tied to their gross income.

The university said the move stems from President Rafael Reif’s announcement in July 2020 that MIT would work with more minority-owned companies to tackle systemic racism on campus. The school plans to host up to seven companies through the partnership as it grows.

Jen Faigel, executive director of CommonWealth Kitchen, said running a turnkey college campus operation was an incredible opportunity for the small business owners they work with.

“Basically, they come in with their pots and pans and the room is set up and there is a built-in customer base,” she said. “There is a tremendous opportunity for these companies to build a strong business and team as well as operational capacity to take them to the next level.”

Faigel has placed great emphasis on raising institutional resources to support small businesses and has worked with Harvard, the University of Massachusetts, Boston College, and other local schools to add mole and peanut sauces made by their immigrant chefs to their menus to record. She said she is now working with Sodexo to do the same for the Colleges of the Fenway and expects an introduction of the Incubator’s products on menu menus and campus convenience stories early next year.

Faigel said the clash of COVID-19 overturning campus restaurant contracts, the struggle over hiring workers, and being settled with structural racism made all universities wonder how they can do better, and they do is glad that as an established non-profit organization they are able to step in and help.

“We see this as a really strong model for economic development on the recreation side to support these businesses,” said Faigel.

For Grace, opening The Underground with Northeastern as a partner is important, she said, as it is a model of how other schools can better serve the communities they are in.

“If I hadn’t passed this point, I would never have found out about it,” she said. “We were never on each other’s agenda.”

Now she is looking forward to building a restaurant that will bring both worlds – students and the city around them – together.

“This is one of those places that really fills that void.”


Janelle Nanos can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @janellenanos.


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