By Kyndal Foster
AFRO Intern
The 2025 installment of A Taste of Summer’s “Long Table Summer Dinner Series” is quickly approaching, with guests booked to begin enjoying great food and company on July 12.
A Taste of Summer was founded by Nailah Queen and James Dickey during the COVID-19 pandemic. Queen and Dickey wanted to bring people together and create fellowship, despite the social distancing restrictions. The pair was inspired by the universal love of food and its ability to “bring community and family together,” said James.
The long table setting of their event plays a pivotal role in the founders’ overall mission. On the “A Taste of Summer” website, Nailah and James attribute the heart of their dining experience to the long table as a “symbol of community and connection.” Giving their guests a space to create community and build connections with each other is important.
“It’s very important – especially in the current state that we are and within the city that we live in – having a safe space, being able to celebrate one another without any incident,” Nailah said.
Additionally, Nailah and James invite their guests to embrace their individuality at the table while also discovering commonalities with each other. To emphasize this goal, they select a color code for each year.
“We don’t tell you how to dress, we just give you a color and let you just be as creative as you want to,” Nailah said. “And they feel that when they come in, they see so many different variations of that color. Everyone just puts their own spin and personal style to it, and we celebrate that.”
With live music echoing through the venue, upon arrival, guests dressed to the nines in the theme color take a seat at the long table and await the main event — food. To make it a truly memorable experience, Nailah and James place great effort in selecting innovative chefs each year.
“We look at bringing in fresh faces as much as we can–chefs or cooks [and] culinary artists that are in the area that are looking to get their brand out there more,” said James. “This long table dinner gives them the opportunity to reach those people that they wouldn’t normally reach.”
Showcasing small businesses in Baltimore is an important component of the long table. Black- and minority-owned businesses find great success in Baltimore and it is important to Nailah and James to give these businesses a seat at the table.
“In doing this, it gives people the opportunity to be seen,” James said. “It puts them on a platform that they normally wouldn’t be on, or wouldn’t have the opportunity to be on.”
Additionally, Nailah asserted, “Entrepreneurship gives us a seat at the table without having to ask for it. So what better table than the long table?”
At the long table, Nailah and James aim to introduce the world to the hidden culinary gems of Baltimore. “There’s a different side of Baltimore that a lot of people don’t see, and we want to showcase it,” said Nailah.
Furthermore, Baltimore’s culture is created by those born here and those drawn here, who choose to call it home.
“It’s really a melting pot,” Nailah said, “and we have a lot of different spins on different culinary dishes, and we make it our own.”
Similarly James doubled down on the sentiment that Baltimore is a melting pot, emphasizing the “diversity of the food that we have here in this city and the way that people prepare it.”
As an example of this diversity, James mentioned the famous best Baltimore chicken box debate.
“You go from east to west and the chicken boxes taste different. You can find a phenomenal chicken box. It’s the same thing with the city here in a culinary aspect. You can find good food in different places in the city,” said James.
“A Taste of Summer” continues to bring people together each year and foster the essential feeling of community in Baltimore. Nailah and James hope to continue to feed the souls of their guests, just as they have done from the beginning.
Admiring the realization of their idea, Naliah shared, “When people started arriving, they saw something different, they saw the barn, they did the tastings, we had the bartender. They got a chance to see everything that we had on paper come to life. And not just them, but we got a chance to see that, this idea that started as this little seed really can happen. It can be something great and people [can] really enjoy.”
James added, “The food, the excitement, the smiling faces, like that was the epitome of what the long table dinner was set up to be. Bringing people together from all different places…It’s one of those things that you look forward to every year.”