NEWS

By Kim M. Braud | September 12, 2026

HARVEY, La. - I walked into Chicken’s Kitchen Tuesday evening for a completely different story.

The Harvey restaurant was the setting for the second installment of The Conversation, a gathering of Black men, community leaders and elected officials organized by James Baker to discuss issues affecting New Orleans and the people who call it home. But while covering the discussion, the place hosting it became a story of its own.

Chicken’s Kitchen is not simply another restaurant on the West Bank. Behind the red building at 921 Peters Road is a business that grew from home catering and social media into a nationally recognized restaurant, earning owner Marlon “Chicken” Chukumerije Williams recognition from the James Beard Foundation and putting a West Bank soul-food operation on the national culinary map.

Williams grew up in New Orleans’ 9th Ward and credits his mother and grandmother with teaching him to cook. According to the restaurant’s history, he began catering in 2014 after a friend asked him to cater a wedding. What began as cooking for others would eventually develop into a business, but the path to a brick-and-mortar restaurant was anything but conventional.

When the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted restaurants and businesses across the country in 2020, Williams turned his home into an opportunity. He began selling food through a home-based operation promoted on Instagram, creating a drive-thru experience that attracted customers and helped build a substantial social media following.

On Sept. 11, 2020, Chicken’s Kitchen officially opened. The crowds followed.

Chicken’s Kitchen developed a reputation for the kind of plate lunches familiar to generations of Louisiana families: fried chicken, catfish, turkey necks, ribs, greens, cabbage, candied yams and other rotating dishes. Its Five Star Mac became one of its signature sides. The restaurant operates around a simple concept - cook the food fresh, serve it generously and keep serving until it is gone.

That approach eventually attracted attention far beyond the West Bank. In 2022, Chicken’s Kitchen was included in The New York Times’ annual list of 50 restaurants across the country the publication was most excited about.

Two years later came another major recognition. The James Beard Foundation named Williams a 2024 semifinalist for Best Chef: South, a category covering chefs from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Puerto Rico. The distinction placed Williams alongside some of the region’s most recognized culinary talent.

For a self-taught chef who learned in the kitchens of his mother and grandmother, the recognition represented a remarkable distance traveled from the home-based food operation of 2020.

But the growth of Chicken’s Kitchen has not been limited to awards and national attention. The restaurant has also made feeding children part of its identity.

Through its Feed Them Kids initiative, Chicken’s Kitchen provides free meals to children and has reported serving more than 10,000 free meals. The program has extended beyond food to support that includes uniforms and school supplies for students throughout Greater New Orleans.

The effort is particularly notable because it addresses a problem that becomes more pronounced when school is out. During the school year, many children have access to free or reduced-price meals through school programs. Summer can leave families responsible for replacing meals children ordinarily receive during the school day.

At Chicken’s Kitchen, feeding those children became part of the business.

Williams’ growth has continued. In 2024, Chicken’s Kitchen also won Best Use of Chicken in a Dish at the National Fried Chicken Festival. In 2025, Williams was selected for Gambit’s 40 Under 40, recognizing young people making an impact in the New Orleans area.

Then came another major step for the business. In 2026, Chicken’s Kitchen moved from its longtime Gretna operation into a larger location at 921 Peters Road in Harvey. The move created room for something customers of the earlier restaurant had not always had: more space to sit down, gather and stay awhile.

That expansion helps explain what I encountered Tuesday night. Chicken’s Kitchen was not simply serving as a place to eat. Tables were filled with people discussing elections, public policy, accountability, leadership and the future of New Orleans. Community leaders and elected officials were sitting in a locally owned restaurant having conversations about the community outside its doors.

There is something fitting about that. Restaurants have long functioned as informal gathering spaces, particularly in Black communities. They are places where people eat, certainly, but also places where relationships are built, ideas are exchanged, business is conducted and community issues are debated.

Chicken’s Kitchen appears to be growing into that role while still holding onto the food and family traditions on which Williams built the business. The restaurant remains unmistakably a plate-lunch operation. Its menu rotates throughout the week, and the restaurant warns customers that service continues only until the food sells out. Depending on the day, customers may find fried chicken, fried or blackened catfish, oxtails, meatloaf, turkey wings, ribs, salmon, lasagna and an assortment of traditional sides.

But the story of Chicken’s Kitchen is increasingly about more than what is on the plate. It is the story of a New Orleans native who learned to cook from the women in his family, started catering, adapted during a global pandemic, used social media to build a customer base, opened a restaurant, earned national culinary recognition and continued expanding without leaving the West Bank.

And it is the story of a business using that success to feed children and provide a space where the community can gather.

I arrived at Chicken’s Kitchen last Tuesday night because I had been invited to document an important conversation.

I left realizing the room where that conversation took place deserved some attention, too.

Sometimes you go looking for one story and find another.

Chicken’s Kitchen is located at 921 Peters Road in Harvey.

Kim M. Braud is the Founder & Editor of Evans Cutchmore Press, an independent newsroom covering Louisiana and the Gulf South. Her reporting focuses on government accountability, infrastructure, business, culture, and the public policies that shape communities.

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