A Black-owned farm-to-table restaurant called Cornbread will soon be opening their newest locations inside 3 Walmart stores in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania this year. Through their expansion, Cornbread hopes not only to serve more people with soul food dishes, but also to create more job opportunities.
In 2017, the restaurant's first location opened in Maplewood, New Jersey. Co-founders Adenah Bayoh and Zadie Smith partnered to bring to life their innovative concept of a soul food restaurant. With Bayoh's entrepreneurial skills and Smith's lifelong culinary experience, Cornbread was born.
Since then, they have been serving traditional American soul food cuisine using farm-to-table ingredients free of hormones and steroids that they source from family-owned businesses throughout the community where they operate. They have also been hiring locally and provide their workers with a living wage as well as flexible hours.
Most recently, they partnered with Walmart to expand into three new locations this year starting the month of July. The first location itself is expected to create about 35 new job opportunities.
"This expansion is the culmination of two years of hard work by my co-founder, Zadie, and our amazing team. Cornbread was born out of a vision and belief that we could create a space where friends and family can enjoy soul food that is also healthy and where we invest in our employees. We also wanted to ensure that our food was accessible, which is why this collaboration with Walmart is so important," Bayoh said.
"When I began my journey as a restaurateur, I was turned down by seven banks before I was able to secure the financing I needed to purchase my first restaurant. Now, 13 years later, my own signature soul food restaurant is expanding outside of New Jersey with the support of the largest retailer in the country."
For more information about Cornbread, visit https://cornbreadsoul.com or follow the restaurant on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/CornbreadMaplewood/