"A cafe designed to celebrate the legacy of famed agricultural scientist and inventor Dr. George Washington Carver has opened inside South Side cultural arts and education center Little Black Pearl, in the Bronzeville neighborhood. Carver 47, helmed by chef and professional vocalist Lizz Wright, will feature dinner boxes and bowls using ingredients from an onsite garden and featuring local vegetable purveyors. Wright says she was inspired by Carver’s relationship to nature when designing the menu. Inside the center, now back open for the first time since the pandemic shutdown in March, Wright is offering a sizable all-day menu includes items including Affy Tapple pancakes topped with spiced apples, caramel, candied peanuts, and peanut butter-butter, a Booker T flatbread accented with mushrooms, spinach, chicken, thyme, and meatless Quarantine Burger spiked with Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce. It also features juices and smoothies with names related to Carver’s life story, including Green Glory and Alternative Fuel. Born out of a partnership with designer and Little Black Pearl founder Monica Haslip, the new cafe menu realizes of one of Wright’s long-held dreams. “I’ve been saving magazine clippings for my own cafe since I was 15,” she says. “I’ve been thinking about some version of this for a long time, but I had no idea how I would go about it.” On top of the regular menu, the cafe also will serve dinner boxes, including a Harvest Bowl for one (herb-roasted chicken with gravy or marinated portobello steaks with gravy; sweet potatoes; balsamic onions, kale, and pomegranate salad) and a ragu autunnale with oxtails or herb-roasted eggplant (tomato sauce with garlic and chili-roasted broccolini) The cafe space at 1050 E. 47th Street also includes a retail market with produce, flowers, home goods, clothing, and more." - Naomi Waxman
