For our Black Madison Archive project, we sat down with Awa Sibi, owner of Les délices de Awa, whose brick-and-mortar restaurant opened on the East Side of Madison in 2024 after six years of her catering locally. On an overcast morning before the restaurant opened for the day, we sat down with Awa, her chefs slowly showing up throughout the interview to start preparing for the day. Awa explained that when she began making and delivering food all over Madison, her mission was to “cook the way I cook for myself and my family”, by not cutting costs on ingredient quality. She wants her customers to have as authentic West African food as possible. She expanded to festivals, but after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she knew she would have to innovate. It wasn’t easy getting a physical building space, but when she learned she obtained 2045 Atwood Avenue, she cried. Everything in Les délices de Awa is intentional, from the open kitchen concept to bringing in an artist from the Ivory Coast to make the restaurant’s original art. The space is inviting, as she puts it, “to carry the warmth that
I have.”
Despite this intentionality and exceptionally flavorful food, Awa says with all of her efforts, it has been a fight to keep the doors open. Folks predicted her restaurant wouldn’t last a year. She still has never had a paycheck to her name. Some people have treated her poorly because she works in the kitchen and busses tables—they don’t realize that she is the owner. One thing that Awa was most surprised about is that, “the support is not coming from our people,” even though she tries hard to “make it inviting for all of us,” she just doesn’t “see a lot of us here.”
Awa’s story reminds us of the fourth principle of Kwanzaa, Ujamaa, or cooperative economics. Ujamaa reminds us of the shared prosperity that comes from supporting Black-owned businesses, and the power in our collective action to support each other’s dreams. In a Hot Ones interview, host Sean Evans asked celebrity chef David Chang about the vulnerability of independent restaurants. Chang recommends that diners should focus on unconditionally patronizing 3-5 restaurants in their communities, making those spaces a second family. Consistency could ensure a business’s longevity.
In our Black Madison Archive project, eight of 75 oral history interviews with Black Madison residents listed Les délices de Awa as a place in Madison they think represents Black excellence and culture. Nineteen other Black-owned businesses, from barber shops to restaurants like Awa’s, were mentioned 47 times. SoulFolk believes that to practice Ujamaa under an imperfect system, such as capitalism, is to show up for these visionary entrepreneurs and businesses in Madison. In our local community, we must sustain not only economic wealth, but also stories of Black dreaming, allowing us to imagine the Black futures we have always deserved.
The SoulFolk Collective’s Black Madison Archive project can be viewed at soulfolkcollective.com
