Black, White, and The Grey: The Story of an Unexpected Friendship and a Landmark Restaurant

The founding partners at The Grey and The Grey Market describe how they transformed from guarded business partners to best friends, revealing how their restaurant helped bridge racial and gender gaps in their Savannah, Georgia community.
Food brings people together, but can it help heal the racial divide? At The Grey in Savannah, Georgia, a star Black woman chef and a food-obsessed White businessman are equal partners who're breaking barriers one meal, one coversation, at a time.Black, White, and The Grey is a story about the mission, trials, and triumphs of two individuals with seemingly little in common media startup defector John O. Morisano and chef/partner Mashama Bailey who came together to build what they hoped would be a special restaurant. In the process, Morisano and Bailey committed to having difficult conversations with each other about how their experiences as a White man and a Black woman in America had shaped their understanding of race, class, and culture. Bailey and Morisano tell their story in stereo, explaining how they went from unsure business partners to best friends as they turned a dilapidated Jim Crow-era Greyhound bus station in historic Savannah, Georgia, into one of the hottest restaurants in the country The Grey facing their inherent biases through honest, unflinching discussions along the way. Morisano provides the bassline and Bailey elucidates, as they reveal the rawness, vulnerability, and humanity that make their partnership so inspiring. It's a conversation that merits evesdropping to find out how they play a part in bridging the deep cultural divide in America during a time of profound national division, activated racism, and raging classism. In celebration of the food and drink that brings people together, a recipe caps each chapter from cocktails to shrimp to pie peppering the narrative with food from their story. Everyone who is fascinated by chef and restaurant culture will savor the behind-the-scenes details of building and running a destination restaurant in this case, one with historical significance and the stage for a larger cultural conversation.