We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Erica Smith. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Erica below.

Erica, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Like most people, Covid changed a lot for our family. It was one thing when you didn’t travel as much as you wanted but it was another thing when you COULD NOT travel at all. So when restrictions were lifted we were determined to travel more. Also in that same season, we saw many people who were being discriminated against in certain restaurants throughout the country. You would see boycotts of those restaurants and what I know for certain is that for every restaurant out there that doesn’t want our business, there are 5 more that do. Those are the businesses that we should be highlighting. Not spending our energy, our the 109.4 billion dollars that black people spend on restaurants, hotels, and lounges to those that don’t.

At Eat Drink Travel while Black, we believe that as black people, we can not see ourselves in the world if we don’t see the world. People of the Black diaspora have made an impact on every part of this world. Hospitality to high-end cuisine and more. Mainstream American media would have us believe that we don’t. Our goal is to provide a community and amazing content to our people. Great places you can eat at, try new amazing drinks, and travel to. We have amazing buying power and when harnessed, I do believe that we can bring about great things

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Both Karey and I come from different sides of hospitality. I’m from Oxnard, a town in Southern California, and I worked as a catering and sales manager to this day I work with some of the best chefs in Atlanta, Georgia. Karey is from the South by way of North Carolina and Florida. He was a restaurant General Manager/Operations Manager for many years. Our understanding of service helps us when we travel or dine out. While we understand that every country has different cultural rules, the attention to detail when it comes to service is something we know well.

We want of course to showcase black-owned businesses both here and abroad but we also want to showcase how we are treated at other establishments. We want to show our experiences abroad hoping to encourage the next generation of travelers. We want the people to know where to go and also where not to go. We desire to have other content creators share their experiences with us so share them with the community at large.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

“That everyone can’t go and everyone doesn’t need to go!”
We always see the memes about “when everyone makes it out of the group chat!” and I love that. But here is the lesson, not everyone needs to go. When it comes to traveling, especially group travels, you have to know what kind of traveler you are and the type of travelers they are. If you have a friend who is ALWAYS late, you can’t invite them to things that require being on time. If you are someone who likes to eat at 5-star restaurants, then don’t invite a friend who likes to cook the whole time back at the Air BNB. I think a lot of friendships could have been saved if people thought about that or had an honest conversation with the people they were traveling with. Depending on who we are traveling with dictates what kind of travelers we need to be. Determine if we need to do our own thing or be like water as my husband says. Go with the flow, we are on vacation.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

Uh oh well to tell how I met my business partner is to say how I met my husband. Karey and I met on match.com and before he tells you the story I can admit that I “winked” at him first. Fast forward 12 years and we have been married for 10 years and have an 8-year-old little girl who plays a very active role in our business. This isn’t our 1st attempt at being business partners. Before we got married we tried in a different field and that did not work. Being married to your business party can be very tricky. We have had to learn how to let the other person do what they are good at and respect what they do. Also being able to tell each other when it’s time to put the camera down and to be present in the moment. We agree before leaving the house, is it just a night out or are we working? Being able to draw that distinction especially when your business is in things that are fun.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://eatdrinktravelwhileblack.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eatdrinktravelwhileblack/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EatDrinktravelwhileblack
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXuT6hWRvAUZnbdncw_WpgQ

Image Credits

All Photos were shot by Karey Smith @Kingkillah of #EDTWBMedia