Bridgeport soul food café defaced with racist graffiti

CHICAGO (WLS) -- An independently owned soul food café in Bridgeport was defaced with racist graffiti.

The neighborhood is now a mix of Asian, Latino and Italian, and Sydney Blakely thought it would be the perfect spot to offer her spicy soul cuisine. But yesterday's incident threw that into doubt.

"It was sickening, my stomach just dropped," she said.

Blakely found racist graffiti on her café's windows, walls and over the colorful mural she commissioned. The vandal spray painted "BLDM" which she understood to mean "Black Lives Don't Matter."

Blakely opened Cook It Mama Café in September, and while she understood Bridgeport has a history of racial conflict, she thought things had changed.

"I hope this helps any other small business owner out there," she said. "Something like this happens, you don't sweep it under the rug, you don't left them forget about it; you make sure everybody knows it's not alright, it's not OK."

"It's still out there and we have to deal with that and I think this is how we do that be call attention to things that are wrong," said 11th Ward Alderman Nicole Lee.

Some residents went out of their way to show support.

"I thought we were more progressive and it's really disappointing to see that people are still vandalizing over having a person color here when the neighborhood is changing and it doesn't reflect that," said Dolores Garcia, would-be patron.

"Just trying to show that support lifting people up and encourage more people to do so and rid this," said Alejandro Serna, fellow Bridgeport business owner.

"I'm very thankful, you guys don't know how much you lifted my spirit from yesterday," Blakely said.

Blakely plans to reopen her café next Wednesday.