The article points out that when blacks were working their way up from slavery and Jim Crow, all they had to do was have a place to dig a pit, or use a low-tech grill, in order to get started, and that most BBQs were carry-outs; but now the costs of entering a business with bricks&mortar and health department regulations are already steep, and now the yuppie-fication of the white celebrity chefs doing BBQ on television is adding to the pressures to use high-tech equipment or to open sit-down restaurants, a more expensive business model.
The restaurant business is very hard to begin with because it is labor-intensive, as the article also brings out. If a restaurant operation gets bigger, it has to hire people who are exposed to the temptations to steal, either directly in the form of food or drinks, or indirectly in the form of recipes, expertise and opening a competing restaurant.
To open a restaurant one must be 100% dedicated. Even live on site if he must. Theft has always been a problem, this is a known fact - from receipts to food disappearing out the back door by nefarious means. To be a chef in one’s own business is even more responsibility. Lots of headaches.
No matter if sit down-family drive thru. Much credit to the owners is due.
OY VEY! and now the help demands $15.00 an hour? No way will they/can they stay in business.