Located on South 48th Street, the café welcomes diners with a chalkboard on the sidewalk listing enticing dishes like South Carolina grits and eggs. Inside is an informal café and a grocery, offering a culinary journey through black history and culture. Stepping into Honeysuckle Provisions in the Walnut Hill neighborhood feels more like entering a community hub than a traditional restaurant. The walls are peppered with pictures from the owners' farm, soul food books, and black-eyed peas, creating a warm and inviting atmosphere. The grocery section features a cooler stocked with cheese, vegetables, and eggs, with fresh produce boxes, coffee, and pantry staples like cereal and rice displayed alongside merchandise on wooden shelves.
A takeout daytime menu focuses on an all-day breakfast with popular items like hoagies, breakfast sandwiches, and beef patties embodying a farm-to-table philosophy. The menu changes frequently, emphasizing support for local Black farmers while highlighting Black foodways and culture.
A few evenings a week, Honeysuckle Provisions offers an elevated dining experience with a multi-course tasting menu called ‘Untitled.’ The ever-changing menu is designed as an opportunity to explore the African diaspora through food and stories on any number of themes, like Haitian Heritage Month. From menus that read like poems and ceramic cups molded after one of the owners' hands to dishes rooted in cultural stories, every detail resonates with a sense of time and place and a deep connection to the owners' roots.
Owners Omar and Cybille prefer to be called social entrepreneurs rather than chefs, driven by the belief that chefs have a social responsibility. Their broader brand, Honeysuckle Projects, extends the mission of Honeysuckle Provisions into a network of community spaces centered around the values of ancestry, nourishment, and reclamation, expressed through pop-ups, dinner parties, and events.
Philadelphia-born and bred Omar Tate identifies as a chef-artist who uses food as one of his many mediums. After working in acclaimed kitchens in Philadelphia and New York City, including Fork, A Voce, Meadow Street, and the former Russet, he launched the supper club Honeysuckle to tell nuanced stories of Blackness in America. In 2020, Tate was named Esquire's Chef of the Year, the following year, he was included in TIME's Next100 list. He has also featured prominently on Netflix's High on the Hog, which traces the roots of Black foodways worldwide and was nominated as a semifinalist for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic at the 2024 James Beard Awards. Cybille St. Aude-Tate, his wife and business partner, is a Haitian-American chef and children’s book author who has appeared at the James Beard House in New York City, Charleston Wine + Food, and on Food Network’s Chopped.
Since opening, Honeysuckle Provisions has received glowing reviews, especially for its hoagies. It has also received national acclaim, with Esquire and Eater naming it one of the best new restaurants in the country.
