Three Black women-owned restaurants you should know about in Spartanburg County

Ranada Price opened her dessert truck, Sweets on the Run, in 2019. Price, then a pharmacy technician, was looking for a job that would allow her to spend more time with her son and daughter.

When Price opened her business, she was part of a growing national trend. The number of women entrepreneurs had been on the rise since 2014, and in 2019, according to the American Express' State of Women-Owned Businesses Report, Black women were the fastest growing entrepreneurial group.

Price's business reflected that trend. She started by selling puddings and her business grew from there.

“It just went from customers asking for puddings to cupcakes, and it just expanded to all different types of sweets,” Price said.

Black women continued to be the fastest growing demographic among entrepreneurs in 2021. According to a May analysis by Harvard Business Review, 17 percent of Black women in the U.S. were in the process of opening a business that year.

And in recent years in Spartanburg, Black women have been a part of the growing food scene in the city and beyond, opening bakeries, food trucks and restaurants.

Ranada Price, Sweets on the Run

Ranada Price is a self-taught baker who grew up watching her mom cook and bake, which later inspired her to start Sweets on the Run.

“My mom passed in 2019, so that really made me step on it and go harder,” Price said. Her truck features a photo mural dedicated to her mom, Tina Gary.

Price developed a rotating menu of 25 items from her food truck on Fridays and Sundays at 297 E. Henry Street in the afternoons starting at 3 p.m.

Some of the more popular items include her strawberry crunch cupcakes, red velvet cupcakes, candy apples, cake pops, cookies, cheesecakes and cheesecake stuff'd strawberries, all handmade by Price.

Sweets on the Run is Price’s first business. She was a participant in the city’s AMPLIFY program in 2019. She learned a lot of the basics of running a business through the program.

“It gave me exposure, (and helped with) finding out information that I was not able to find out on my own and understanding Spartanburg,” Price said.

More: Amplify is helping African Americans achieve small business dreams

Recently, Price had her food truck revamped and rolled out it’s new look last week. A bright pink wrap was put on the outside, digital menu boards were added, and a small kitchen was put on the inside so she can do all of her baking on site.

“I was doing a lot of my baking at home, but now my truck is set up so that I can bake off of it, cool, refrigerate, anything I need to do,” Price said.

Outside of her usual selling days, new and old customers will be able to try her sweets during this year’s Spring Fling on April 23-24.

Tiffany Goforth, Oh 7 Bar and Restaurant

Tiffany Goforth moved into her first restaurant Oh 7 Bar and Restaurant at 1059 Fernwood Glendale Road just as the pandemic hit.

“It was fun, it was adventurous, and yet it was kind of tedious and tiring considering it was right in the middle of COVID. I acquired the lease right before COVID,” Goforth said. “We had not yet gotten customers in the door, or even gotten our name out there to let them know we were here.”

She opened her doors in January 2021.

More: Spartanburg Eats: East side soul food, new downtown breakfast option, Rigsby's update

While Oh 7 B&R is Goforth’s first restaurant, her family has been a part of the restaurant business for decades. Her parents owned Mimi’s Deli during downtown’s Main Street Mall phase.

“Restaurants, food it was something we always did, from the restaurant storefront to catering through Goforth’s Catering,” Goforth said.

In her own restaurant, Goforth focuses on soul food, selling fried whiting, chunky hand-mashed potatoes, mac and cheese and other homemade sides. Some of her more popular items are chitlins, wings, chow chow, and pork chops. She and her six employees make everything fresh from 4-9 p.m. Thursdays, 4 p.m.-midnight Fridays, 10:30 a.m.-3p.m. Saturdays and 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sundays.

Now that Oh 7 is gaining traction and the pandemic’s restrictions are loosening, Goforth is quickly expanding on what the restaurant has to offer.

The restaurant now offers brunch on Saturdays with breakfast sandwiches, fish and grits, chicken and waffles and bottomless mimosas served from their full bar. She also plans to start having bands and karaoke nights in a few months.

Charlene Davis, Charlene's Home Cooking

When Charlene Davis opened Charlene's Home Cooking, her third restaurant, with her husband Mike Davis in 2013, she had her work cut out for her.

"We had to come in and redo everything," Davis said. But after a rough spot, Charlene's is now a bustling Sunday dinner spot in Moore.

Davis’ restaurant at 1136 E. Blackstock Road, decorated with Dallas Cowboys memorabilia and photos of her grandchildren, is where she chose to share her love of traditional Southern cooking, a love that her grandmother Bessie Alexander also shared.

“I love to cook. I’ve been cooking ever since I was eight years old, my grandma taught me,” Davis said.

Many of the recipes diners at Charlene’s Home Cooking love are the same one’s Davis learned by her grandmother’s side from her cabbage, yams, and collard greens.

Her rotating menu, served from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays and from 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Fridays and Sundays, also includes macaroni and cheese, baked chicken, peach cobbler, beef stew, cornbread and baby back ribs. All of the food is made by the owners, though two of their granddaughters will come in to help out on busier days.

“We do real food. We don’t do canned food; we do fresh vegetables,” Davis said.

Davis also bakes cakes from scratch, available by the slice or whole. One of her most popular is her crack cake - a cinnamon pound cake made with Charlene’s secret recipe.

Davis said customers often order a slice with their meal and then buy a whole cake before they leave.

“The longer crack cake sits, the better it tastes. You can keep a crack cake two weeks and it tastes better two weeks later than it did when it first started,” Davis said.

Samantha Swann covers food and restaurants in Spartanburg County. She is a University of South Carolina Upstate and Greenville Technical College alumna. Contact her with your burning restaurant questions, recipes, and new dinner specials at sswann@shj.com or on Instagram at @sameatsspartanburg.

This article originally appeared on Herald-Journal: 3 Black women-owned restaurants you should know about in Spartanburg