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The Eat Black Charlotte Week is underway at venues around the city.

The 9-day festival offers discounted meals at more than 20 local Black-owned restaurants and concludes with a food truck rally at Victoria Yards in Uptown this Saturday, where guests can purchase food from 30 vendors.

General admission to the rally is free, but people can purchase early access tickets for $25 to avoid the later crowd. The ticket allows guests to enter the rally one hour early.

Corey Wilkins, a local food influencer and part of the team who created the festival, said Black restaurants are essential in Charlotte’s food scene, noting that the festival provides them with much-needed exposure they wouldn’t typically have.

“The goal of this week is to help these restaurants see a bunch of new faces.”

Kristen Stewart, the owner of Urban Sweets, an ice cream shop, participated in the food truck rally in 2022 when her concept still operated on a push cart. 

Now that Urban Sweets has expanded into its brick-and-mortar location in South End, Stewart is participating in the entire week.

Steward said Urban Sweets has a different special each day this week as part of the festival, and support so far has been ‘phenomenal.”

“We’re up over 200% revenue-wise where we would normally be,” she said of this past weekend’s sales.

Steward plans to bring out her push cart for the food truck event. She said making a good first impression when participating in events like these is important.

“We’re looking forward to promoting [Urban Sweets], so people can continue to come by the shop,” she said.

Participating restaurants include:

• Crav’n Caribbean
• Cuzzo’s Cuisine II
• Urban Sweets
• Snow Your Roll
• FUNOHCAKES
• Homestyle Kitchn
• Upfresh Kitchen Highland Creek
• Detour Coffeebar
• Renaldo’s Culinary Experience
• Tattooz & Booz
• Jazzy Cheesecakes
• Jolof on Wheels
• Everybody Eats
• Ice Vibes Food Truck & Lounge
• The People’s Market
• Love In Action Cafe
• Mojos Famous Hot Dogs
• The Jugo Man
• BREWTON’’S Café
• Mad Dash
• Mr. Seafood Charlotte
• Sea Hut
• Romeo’s Vegan Burgers
• Boujee Soul Food
• JINYA Ramen Bar
• Lamberts Cafe
• Weathered Souls Brewing Charlotte
• Esther Cuisine Kreyol
• Queen City Cheesesteaks