Exclusive Cynthia Daniels Interview
There’s never been a more magical time for Black women than now. In 2017, we’ve watched Michelle Obama make political power moves, Beyonce rule the universe, Ava DuVernay dazzle the big screen, Issa Rae sizzle the small screen, Serena dominate pro sports and extraordinary entrepreneurs like Memphis Black Restaurant Week founder Cynthia Daniels shine in the spotlight.
A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Cynthia wasn’t always a visionary entrepreneur running the hottest event planning & consulting business (Cynthia Daniels & Co.) in Memphis but it’s clear after chatting with her that she has excellence in her DNA.
After losing her job and stepping out on faith, Cynthia landed in culture-rich Memphis where she would soon build an event-planning empire with Memphis Black Restaurant Week as her signature event.
“For me, obviously coming from Atlanta, I grew up middle class–African-American background–in Southwest Atlanta so moving to Memphis I really expected that same culture. Food is a big thing here, we have an Italian festival, a Jewish festival, Latino festival, all of these festivals that are centered around culture and food in Memphis. And so, for me, when I started volunteering, getting involved, some kind of way I ended up working with a restaurant owner–I met Fran Mosley, an entrepreneur who creates these really cool signature cupcakes, meatloaf cupcakes, macaroni & cheese cupcakes–the coolest thing ever–and so she opened up a restaurant in Memphis.
What I learned working with her so closely, helping her with her dream, she really poured her life savings into that restaurant and the restaurant business for African-American owners is a lil bit different… we really pour our life savings and you just hope that by word of mouth that you get traffic coming into the restaurant.
And so it happened for about two weeks–I worked as their social media manager and helped with the marketing and branding and so then traffic died down.
Well, I thought ‘you know what’s missing from Memphis?’ as much as we celebrate all of these cultures and different foods we don’t have a platform for our restaurants, for our community, so I took the time to talk to different restaurant owners and got 8 people to be excited about a Memphis Black restaurant week–offering discounted items for lunch and dinner and we launched it March 7-13th of 2016.
What I did not expect was such a huge amount of support… I thought it would go well but we actually had over 3,000 patrons that week who spent about $85,000 in sales so every restaurant owner at minimum quadrupled their business.
So with that, it really pushed me to say ‘you know what, I need to do this full-time, I really need to become an entrepreneur, leave my 9-5 and continue to create events around my community so now I have 5 other signature events that I do to uplift young professionals here”
Like any successful world-changer, Cynthia wasn’t satisfied with her early success and sprinkled her magic across multiple ventures.
“Out of the birth of Memphis Black Restaurant Week was my next signature event 40 under 40 Urban Elite Professionals, and I’m sure you’re familiar with the top 40 under 40–that’s a national brand–but I felt like I had a circle of friends that really supported me during Memphis Black Restaurant week.
They weren’t selfish and were really open to helping me and making that dream come true so, in the process, I looked around and realized I have 12 amazing individuals who are giving up all their time, being selfless, to work with me and they’ve never really been recognized in their profession–they’ve really never been celebrated–and I thought ‘what can i do to change that?’
So April of 2016 I said ‘you know what, I’m going to have time after Restaurant Week has calmed down, once I’ve got all my data collected, I wanna create this gala, I wanna do a black tie, I really wanna do it like it’s never been done in Memphis’ and so with that I launched this event, made it public in July and 350 tickets sold out in two weeks.”
Again, that was another indicator of ‘this is what I’m supposed to be doing’–Memphis has really changed my life trajectory, I am now an entrepreneur because of this city because I’m trying to create excitement around the young Black talent that’s here and really help people understand that we have value and that this is how you retain talent, by celebrating them.”
Cynthia, now a celebrated tastemaker, also launched an outdoor concert series to attract Memphis millennials to the National Civil Rights Museum, a bridal expo for African-American brides and a “Shop Black” experience for holiday season.
“My brand is creating the unthinkable and unimaginable for institutions that need to continue stay to relevant in the community”
You can follow Cynthia’s awe-inspiring journey on Facebook and purchase tickets to her events here.
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