EatOkra
The biggest map of Black-owned restaurants, cafes, and food trucks in the country, kept current by owners and diners.
Best for: Eating out anywhere in the U.S.
Visit EatOkra →Nobody's list of Black-owned businesses is complete, ours included. The national apps have tens of thousands of businesses and can tell you where to eat in Atlanta. We have the ones we know, close to home. Use both. These are the directories we trust and use ourselves. If you find a central Jersey business on one of them that is not here yet, suggest it and neighbors will help confirm it.
Other places to look
Listed roughly from widest reach to closest to home.
Official Black Wall Street
A nationwide directory across every category, with an app that shows what is near you wherever you are.
Best for: Traveling, and categories beyond food.
Visit Official Black Wall Street →BuyBlack.org
A self-submitted web directory by town. It had more Trenton businesses than any other site we checked.
Best for: Searching a specific New Jersey town.
Visit BuyBlack.org →Support Black Owned
A long-running national directory with a New Jersey page of about 150 businesses.
Best for: Browsing statewide.
Visit Support Black Owned →The Blk Plug
A newer directory with reviews and town pages, including some Mercer County businesses.
Best for: Reading what other customers said.
Visit The Blk Plug →NJ Black Businesses
A statewide directory and Instagram account that has been curating New Jersey businesses since 2014.
Best for: Statewide discovery, and owners who want to be listed everywhere.
Visit NJ Black Businesses →Black Owned NJ
An Instagram community of about twelve thousand people sharing New Jersey businesses, events, and pop-ups.
Best for: Keeping up week to week.
Visit Black Owned NJ →Black In Jersey
Trenton-based Black media that publishes statewide lists: Black-owned dispensaries, media outlets, restaurants, and more.
Best for: Curated lists with context.
Visit Black In Jersey →African American Chamber of Commerce of NJ
The statewide chamber, headquartered in Trenton, with more than 800 member businesses and the annual Juneteenth Black Business Expo.
Best for: Owners who want a network, not just a listing.
Visit African American Chamber of Commerce of NJ →Black Farmers Index
A national index of Black farmers and food producers, with New Jersey growers, beekeepers, and market gardeners.
Best for: Buying food from the source.
Visit Black Farmers Index →Witherspoon-Jackson Historical and Cultural Society
Princeton's historically Black neighborhood keeps its own list of Black, minority, and women-owned businesses, and a quarterly newsletter.
Best for: Princeton, and the history behind it.
Visit Witherspoon-Jackson Historical and Cultural Society →Google Maps and Yelp
Both let owners mark a business "Black-owned." Search "Black-owned" plus what you need, like "Black-owned barber near me," and the filter appears.
Best for: Finding a specific service fast.
Visit Google Maps and Yelp →
Own a business? Be on all of them. Mark your business "Black-owned" on Google and Yelp, because that is where
strangers search. Add yourself to BuyBlack and EatOkra. Then list here, where your neighbors look.
What JaquansList adds
Three things the big lists cannot do, because they are big.
Somebody vouches.
Three marks, and you can see which one a listing has. JL confirmed means we know the business and the owner is engaged; that is what you see first. Community confirmed and community identified are the wider list, with neighbors doing the checking. On the big lists, anyone can add anything and nobody checks.
Close to home, and personal.
Central Jersey only, with the town on every card and the owner's face and story behind each business. It works for businesses that live on Instagram and have no website. You are not one of 18,000 here.
We show up together.
A directory tells you a business exists. A Show Up event brings a group of us through the door on the same day: a lunch, a Saturday at a farm, a shopping night. Announced in the newsletter, on the calendar, and on social.
Show Up events
Once a month we pick a listed business or a Black-led organization, and we go, together. The business gets a day it remembers and a room full of new regulars. We get to meet each other.
- 1We pick one. A listed business or an organization on the list, chosen from what you nominate. Restaurants, farms, shops, studios, a fundraiser, a game night.
- 2We announce it. On the events calendar, in the newsletter, and on social, with a date, a time, and what to expect. Add it to your phone with one tap.
- 3You come, and bring someone. No ticket, no fee. Spend what you would spend anyway. Say hello to the owner. Post a photo and tag the business.
- 4The business tells us how it went. Sales for the day, new followers, what worked. We share it in the next newsletter so the next business knows what to expect.