This story is sponsored by Fishbone Seafood.
With the support of Master P and an unwavering commitment to community, restaurant franchise Fishbone Seafood is sewing down home cooking into the Western culinary landscape, and doing so with Black women at the helm.
Fishbone Seafood, founded by Will Conley, is a restaurant chain specializing in Southern-style cuisine and seafood staples. From po’ boys and fried filets to hush puppies and cobbler, the menu alone transports patrons to their familial roots. For those outside of the community, it serves as a warm embrace, offering an opportunity to understand and experience a potent part of Black American heritage through two of the most culturally salient elements that can exist: food and community. Food is a powerful tool through which culture is preserved, stories are told, and diverse communities come together. The impact of such a tool is intimately understood by Fishbone Seafood owners and supporters.
This month, we are shedding a light on trailblazers within the Fishbone family that help to set the franchise apart: Black women. In addition to its premium menu, select Fishbone locations are run by the very foundational stewards of the culture, Black women, who reflect the entrepreneurial possibilities that exist when community comes together.
Women such as Andrea Powell, Antoinette McDowell, Meshe Anderson, Yemi Jinadu + Ola Ogundiran, Darlene Melvin, and Diane Butler own Fishbone locations across Southern California. Like most Black Americans residing in California, their families, originally hailing from the South, traveled west and took their Southern roots and long standing traditions with them. Such was the case for Diane Butler, whose parents settled in Los Angeles after moving from Mississippi and Louisiana. Butler grew up with her parents and late sister, and, after experiencing racial inequalities, felt impassioned to pursue law. Her passion for community and advocacy work has inspired her to expand her law profession, adding entrepreneurship to her portfolio by way of Fishbone. Her Fishbone Seafood establishment is located in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Mall, one of the historic hubs of Black Los Angeles.
Similarly, Louisiana-born, Compton-raised Meshe Anderson’s connection to culture led her to Fishbone. Through what she describes as a leap of faith, she started her family-run location in Long Beach four years ago, and is fulfilled daily by the relationships she has cultivated with her local customers.
Antoinette McDowell, healthcare professional turned business-owner established her Ontario, California location to create lasting impact that her family can carry on. Defying the odds throughout her life and creating a foundation for her children to thrive, McDowell sees Fishbone as an integral part of the path she is forging.
Darlene Melvin, an artist from Detroit, Michigan channeled her creativity and love for people into hosting and cooking. After a fulfilling life working and retiring in the San Fernando Valley, Melvin saw Fishbone as the perfect avenue to pursue her passion for people and food.
With Yemi Jinadu and Ola Ogundiran, Fishbone highlights culinary connections across the African diaspora, and how the global language of food can unite Black experiences and opportunities. Across countries and time, likeness can be found in the way Black communities break bread. Think: similarities between red beans and rice and Caribbean rice and peas, gumbo with okra and West African stews, and the many ways we use yam and cornmeal across practices. Jindu and Ogundiran are two Nigerian women who relocated to Los Angeles over three decades ago, establishing lives for themselves as registered nurses. They opened their Thousand Oaks, California location in 2024, as a means for financial expansion and ownership, and to enter an industry where they felt more fulfilled and connected to people.
The women franchise leaders of Fishbone Seafood hail from all walks of life, coming together in the hospitality business to diversify the field and empower other women to become business-owners themselves. Venturing into the entrepreneurial landscape, where they are outnumbered, provides a new challenge and opportunity to show up in support of their efforts.
Black women have crafted generations of tradition and love through our culinary practices. The women leading their Fishbone Seafood establishments are expanding upon this tradition, in a way that is sustainable intentional, and carves out a legacy of their own.
Through their monumental partnership with Percy Miller a.k.a. Master P that seeks to expand the business through their new Fishbone Express locations, the company can continue to prop up Black entrepreneurs and families to succeed.
