Black-Owned Businesses in Phoenix to Support in 2026

Black-owned Phoenix is, in our directory, mostly a food story. Of the Black-owned businesses listed across the metro, seventeen are restaurants, cafes, or caterers. The range inside that is the interesting part: Southern soul food and barbecue, Ethiopian, Caribbean, pan-African, Chicago-style chicken, acai bowls, and coffee.

Around the food sit a handful of institutions that have been holding ground far longer than any restaurant. A theatre company founded in 1970. The only brick-and-mortar Black-owned bookstore in the city. A marketplace built to incubate other Black-owned businesses. This guide covers where to eat first, and what else is worth your money and your time.

Quick answer

1. For soul food, Lo-Lo's Chicken & Waffles on South Central and Charlie Mae's Soul Food.
2. For barbecue and wings, Honey Bear's BBQ, ATL Wings, and Chicago's Chicken Shack.
3. For Ethiopian, Abyssinia Restaurant & Café in Phoenix or Cafe Lalibela over in Tempe.
4. For Caribbean, The Breadfruit & Rum Bar, Caribbean Marketplace Grill, and Caribbean Palm Restaurant & Bar.
5. For pan-African, LATHA Restaurant & Bar, which is Black-owned and women-owned.
6. For coffee, A.T. Oasis Coffee & Tea Shop.
7. For books, Grassrootz Bookstore in Eastlake Park, the city's only brick-and-mortar Black-owned bookstore.
8. For theatre, Black Theatre Troupe, founded in 1970 and still running.
9. For shopping, The Diaspora Collective, The Thread & Do The Damn Thing, and Authentic Ethio African Spices.
10. Our Phoenix hub has the full list alongside the rest of the Valley.

Where should I eat?

Start with Lo-Lo's Chicken & Waffles. It is the best known Black-owned restaurant in the city, and its flagship sits at 1220 S Central Ave. Southern fried chicken, waffles, and the sides that make the trip worth it.

For soul food without the queue, Charlie Mae's Soul Food. For barbecue, Honey Bear's BBQ. For wings, the city has two distinct arguments: ATL Wings and Chicago's Chicken Shack, each named after the city whose style it is making.

The East African and Caribbean kitchens are where the list gets genuinely deep for a metro this size:

Cuisine	Where to go
Ethiopian	Abyssinia Restaurant & Café, Cafe Lalibela (Tempe)
Caribbean	The Breadfruit & Rum Bar, Caribbean Marketplace Grill, Caribbean Palm Restaurant & Bar
Pan-African	LATHA Restaurant & Bar
Soul food and barbecue	Lo-Lo's Chicken & Waffles, Charlie Mae's Soul Food, Honey Bear's BBQ
Coffee and cafes	A.T. Oasis Coffee & Tea Shop, Caffe Boa
Bistro and bar	The Concierge Bistro Bar, Chic Chef Co. Cafe & Marketplace

Cafe Lalibela deserves its own line. The family has been serving Ethiopian food in Tempe for more than two decades, and the vegan and vegetarian side of the menu is generous rather than an afterthought, which is not always true of restaurants that mention it.

For something lighter, Berry Berry Best Acai Bowls. For catering rather than a table, All About Food AZ.

What should I know about Grassrootz Bookstore?

That it is the only one. Grassrootz Bookstore is Phoenix's only brick-and-mortar Black-owned bookstore, opened in 2019 in the historic Eastlake Park neighborhood by Ali Nervis and Tremikus Muhammad. It specializes in African American literature, history, and culture, and it is also a juice bar, a coffee shop, and a workspace, with juices named after Black leaders.

It runs an annual Black History Festival and has drawn attention well past Arizona. If you make one stop from this guide that is not a meal, make it this one.

What else has been here a long time?

Black Theatre Troupe was founded on September 14, 1970 by Helen K. Mason, who was then working for the City of Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department and was the first African American woman to reach supervisor there. She started it with a group of inner-city students who wrote and performed poetry.

Fifty-six years later it is one of the most enduring Black theatre organizations in the country, and since 2013 it has had its own building, the Helen K. Mason Performing Arts Center, which opened on the first day of Black History Month.

Where do I shop, and who can I hire?

The Diaspora Collective is a marketplace and culture shop. The Thread & Do The Damn Thing combines secondhand retail with an entrepreneurship space, and is Black-owned and women-owned. Authentic Ethio African Spices is the market to visit if the Ethiopian meal made you want to cook one.

Beyond retail the list thins out fast, and that is worth naming. Outside food, shopping, and the theatre company above, our Phoenix directory holds three Black-owned businesses in total: Archwood Exchange, a marketplace and community business hub; Glow-Frame Initiative, a film and audio-visual training nonprofit; and Bear and the Honey Specialty Bakery.

There is no Black-owned attorney, accountant, contractor, salon, or real estate agent listed in the Phoenix metro. Those businesses exist in this city. They are not in our directory yet, which is a gap in the record rather than a fact about Phoenix.

How were these listings sourced?

Every one carries a verification status you can read on the listing itself. Most of the businesses here are marked publicly listed, meaning ownership was recorded from a public source. A smaller number are self identified, meaning the owner confirmed it.

Ownership is never inferred from a name, a photo, or a neighborhood. That rule removes a whole class of plausible-looking listings, and it is the reason the counts on this page are lower than a list assembled by guessing would be.

Common mistakes

Treating a food list as the whole community. Seventeen of these are restaurants because that is what has been recorded, not because Black-owned Phoenix is a restaurant scene with nothing else in it.

Only showing up in February. Black History Month traffic is real and it is a single month. A standing order at A.T. Oasis Coffee & Tea Shop or a habit of buying books at Grassrootz is worth more across a year.

Assuming an ownership tag is a certification. It is a sourced claim with a status attached. Certification is a separate thing, granted by a third party, and it is shown separately when a business has it.

Missing Tempe. Cafe Lalibela is in Tempe, not Phoenix. Filtering strictly to the city limits will lose it and others like it.

FAQ

Source notes for editors

• Business names, categories, cities, and ownership tags come from published Inclusivity.org listings in the Phoenix metro directories (Phoenix, Tempe, Scottsdale, Chandler, Mesa, Gilbert, Glendale, Avondale, Queen Creek), queried 2026-08-15. Counts reflect that snapshot.
• Grassrootz Bookstore's 2019 opening, Eastlake Park location, founders Ali Nervis and Tremikus Muhammad, juice bar, and status as Phoenix's only brick-and-mortar Black-owned bookstore: 12News and KJZZ coverage, plus the store's own site.
• Black Theatre Troupe's September 14, 1970 founding by Helen K. Mason, her role at City of Phoenix Parks and Recreation, and the February 2013 opening of the Helen K. Mason Performing Arts Center: blacktheatretroupe.org history page and Arizona Women's Hall of Fame.
• Lo-Lo's flagship address is taken from its own Inclusivity.org listing.
• Cafe Lalibela is in Tempe, and the guide always described it that way. Its listing was stored under the Phoenix city value until 2026-08-15, when 82 misfiled Arizona listings were re-checked against published street addresses and moved to their real cities; the listing and this guide now agree.