ALBANY — The scent of her grandmother’s kitchen. Neighbors eating together on their porches. A community fueled by good energy and a whole lot of good food.
Albany restauranteur Abigail Julien often draws inspiration from these childhood memories.
To learn more about the Capital Region’s inaugural 518 Black Restaurant Week commemorating Juneteenth, go to www.518blackrestaurantweek.biz/
“If I didn’t have something, I would get it from my neighbor across the street. If my neighbor across the street didn’t have dinner, they knew that someone was cooking a pot of stew at a certain place that evening,” the New York City native recalled. “We want to keep that energy here.”
Julien is the co-founder of the Good Religion Grill, a Caribbean soul restaurant that opened this past January at 28 N. Third Street in Albany. She is one of many Black business owners participating in the Capital Region’s inaugural 518 Black Restaurant Week commemorating Juneteenth, which marks when Texas residents finally learned that enslaved African Americans were emancipated in the United States — two years after President Abraham Lincoln enacted it in 1863.
Good Religion will join other participating restaurants in offering a $35 prix-fixe menu, as well as dine-in and take-out specials, from Monday, June 19 to Sunday, June 25.
For Julien, the holiday is a way to celebrate her heritage and ancestors, whom she described as being “ingenious” when it came to how they shared food. It’s also a time to honor family members who taught her that food is not only a language of love but also a powerful mechanism for change, like her grandmother who started a program that fed children in South America and her father who would cook for their inner-city community out of her childhood home.
As part of the weeklong event designed to bring awareness to…
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