Located on the 8100 block of the bustling business corridor of South Stony Island Avenue is the Black family-owned restaurant The Retro Grill. The fast-casual restaurant in Avalon Park offers American classics such as traditional and vegan-style burgers, Philly cheesesteaks and various side options like mozzarella sticks and onion rings.
“It’s a family business, so we all work in the business. My son works the grill. He knows how to run this place. [My daughter] Teryn works in the business too.” The Retro Grill co-owner Ebony Crump said about what it means to run a family-based operation. “We all work in here and just about everybody [else] is a [non-familial] employee but they all live close to the area so they know the people who come in here.”
What makes The Retro Grill even more of a gem is that Crump, her husband Clint Payne and her brother-in-law own the property. They purchased it in May 2023 after having rented the building since 2009. Prior to The Retro Grill, Crump and Payne operated the fashion boutique Jimmi Skouls out of the location at 8126 S. Stony Island Ave.
Black neighborhoods in Chicago are used to having their main streets swamped with big box stores that have the majority share of commerce in the community, which makes locally-owned businesses much more special. Research by the Brookings Institute shows that nationally just 3% of Black households own commercial property compared to 8% of white households. “When it comes to commercial real estate ownership in majority-Black neighborhoods, Black business owners are often systematically excluded from the economic benefits ownership can generate, while other investors amass control over profits and the trajectory of neighborhood development,” reads the study.
Multiple studies have shown that minority business owners also face racial bias that makes it more difficult to obtain a commercial loan.
Crump and her family are among the many Black commercial property owners along the stretch of Stony Island Avenue from 80th to 95th streets. Ald. Michelle Harris (8th Ward) described the street as an anomaly where there are many Black commercial property owners.
“I think Stony is that specialty kind of thing where just many of these properties are owned by Black folks,” Harris said. “It’s a place where people want to be. You would have the traffic patterns and the visibility that businesses need to survive. So put all that in a box, and it makes it the perfect location for just about any type of business.”
The TRiiBE visited the corridor on Sept. 13. Other Black commercial property owners in the area include Flowers Unlimited & Gifts at 8621 S. Stony Island Ave., Genesis Print & Copy Services on 83rd and Stony, and Doty Nash Funeral Home at 8620 S. Stony Island Ave.
According to Frankye Payne, the executive director of the Southeast Chamber of Commerce which oversees the area where The Retro Grill is located, referred to the corridor as a “Black Wall Street” at one point in time.
“The majority of business owners in the Calumet Heights and Avalon Park area are Black-owned and operated. Many of them are also legacy business owners who have either inherited their parents’ business or have maintained property ownership,” Payne said.
Payne, who is not related to The Retro Grill co-owner Clint Payne, noted it is difficult to obtain data on Black-owned commercial properties as deeds do not include racial or demographic information. “The demographic ownership data with the City of Chicago is quite fragmented, especially on this topic. Obtaining data about demographic ownership can be challenging, especially in areas affected by systemic racism and redlining,” Payne added.
The previous owner of The Retro Grill building was “reluctant” to sell the building, Crump said.
“Although [my husband] and his brothers have been in here as Jimmi Skouls for years, they have been trying to buy the building and were not very successful,” Crump said about The Retro Grill location, referencing the urban fashion boutique that they housed in the building from 2009 to 2016.
Crump added that even with an 800 credit score, they were denied loans from various banks that told them “the restaurant industry was just too volatile and they just didn’t see the potential.”
After a year of working to get approved, Crump said the family was approved for a loan of over $500,000 in 2023 through the Chicago Community Loan Fund, which provides financing for small business owners in low and middle-income communities. Though it was a tough process, Crump said that finally owning the building makes it worth it.
“It is a true investment in our community. This is our area,” Crump said. “This is home for us. We’re not driving in from the North Side. We can walk here. I love it.”
Sitting at a table inside the eatery, Crump explained the meaning behind The Retro Grill name and how it is an ode to the more than 30 years she and her family have owned businesses as East Side natives.
“The idea behind The Retro Grill for us was that we wanted to do, like, a throwback to all of our previous businesses and to the neighborhood,” Crump said.
Pointing to the interior decor of the restaurant’s tables, the names of her family’s businesses are written out in the tables’ design.
“If you look at our tables, we had other businesses, clothing stores and a carwash. My business partners [in-laws] have always been business owners in the neighborhood and grew up in this neighborhood, so it was a throwback to all the things we’ve done in this community for 30 years,” Crump explained.
Crump listed several businesses Payne operated with his family members beginning in the 1990s when they opened an urban fashion store called Krew Sportswear 87th near Kenwood. With the success of the business, the family expanded Krew Sportswear to multiple locations on the South Side including 76th and Jeffrey and 73rd and Stony Island, Crump said.
“[Payne] was the type of guy who studied fabric and he could tell you what the color for the season would be,” Crump said. Back in March, WGCI radio personality Leon Rogers posted a video on Instagram featuring an upcoming documentary about the Chicago streetwear scene, highlighting the impact of Krew Sportswear which was closed in 2001.
“It wasn’t stuff that you could get in Nordstrom. You wouldn’t see somebody walking down the street in your clothes,” Crump said, describing the unique offerings the boutique sold.
Crump said Payne’s family also once operated a carwash called Water Werks from the late ‘90s until the early 2000s.
“When I was growing up, my dad always used to tell me, ‘You should never want to work for anybody. You should always be your own boss,’” Teryn Payne, the daughter of Payne and Crump, said while sitting alongside her mother inside their restaurant. She handles The Retro Grill’s HR operations with her mom.
“I think the legacy that we are leaving, and that we are leaving for each other, has been very important and it’s taught me a lot about working so hard for what you have,” Teryn Payne added.
When speaking about the closing of their clothing stores, Crump cited industry pressures such as the growth of e-commerce and fast fashion companies as hurting their fashion business. With Payne’s experience operating stores and Crump’s education in business and entrepreneurship, she said her husband came to her with the idea of opening a restaurant.
Erik Rico Nance, a friend of the family and the owner of businesses such as LiteHouse Whole Food Grill in Hyde Park, introduced Crump and Payne to the restaurant business in 2018. The Retro Grill was first launched as Mikkey’s Retro Grill the same year.
Crump said she and her husband rebranded as The Retro Grill in 2022 due to “creative differences,” with Nance, Crump said.
Though they only dropped Mikkey’s from The Retro Grill name, Crump said the rebranding came with some distrust from community members who thought they were under new ownership and was no longer a Black-owned business.
“We are still responding. We had to refocus our efforts on our marketing and just build our trust and our presence back up in our community so that they can know who we were,” said Crump, who also handles community partnerships for the business.
Crump said outreach efforts have included putting menus on neighbors’ doors, doing catering orders and reaching out to social media influencers to help spread the word about their menu offerings. Teryn Payne, the daughter of Crump and Clint Payne, said they have also reached out to social media food critic Keith Lee to potentially reap the benefits of the “Keith Lee effect.”
Though Crump and her daughter described business as slow, delivery app orders dinged nonstop as the two spoke to The TRiiBE. One customer who sat in the restaurant with her family called Crump over to compliment a burger she had during a previous visit to The Retro Grill that prompted her to return for another meal.
Crump said she is looking to expand The Retro Grill to other locations across the city, eyeing a potential West Side location soon. Having a strong presence in the community is important to Crump and the family alike. As the business’s legal name is Legacy ETC, Crump said the meaning is twofold.
“It means one, something to pass on to your family members and leave for them at a time in the future,” she said, “but it also means leaving a lasting impact on your community.”
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