CHARLOTTE, N.C. — This year has been a difficult and painful year for so many people, dealing with both the coronavirus pandemic and the civil unrest that followed George Floyd's death.
Despite all of that, a local restaurant is seeing their business grow and feeling the love and support from the community, as so many people look to support Black-owned businesses.
The phone doesn't stop ringing and the line continues to grow long past lunch hour at LuLu's Maryland Style Chicken and Seafood on Tuckaseegee Road.
“Essentially we have daily and weekly goals and we've been able to meet and exceed them, so it’s a sign we're going in the right direction,” said Miketa Proctor. She owns the restaurant with her fiancé.
Since the push to support Black-owned businesses, they say they’ve seen around 100 more customers a day.
“We’ve had loyal customers and longtime customers who say hey, I see the impact, I see all of the people outside. Not just to support you guys, but they're interacting with each other and it’s very diverse. So, bringing people together with the food is great as well,” said Proctor.
They opened last November and have endured the coronavirus pandemic. They didn’t have to shut down and pivoted to drive up only.
“We didn't think we'd get the amount of momentum that we did or the amount of support that we did,” said J. Davis, co-owner of LuLu’s.
They say they’re spreading that support by making a personal effort to help other Black-owned businesses.
“It’s our community so what we have to do is make sure we're building from within. Things have been hard, we've seen how hard it’s been, even just to get up and get started with essentially what we felt like was no support. We don't want other people to have to deal with what we did to get started,” said Davis.
They've been so busy that even during the pandemic, they've had to hire more employees.