Candi Dailey Is Turning Dinner Into A Cultural Motion

[ad_1] by Janee Bolden November 16, 2025

Her signature occasion is the Fried Chick’n & Champagne Secret Supper Expertise.

Candi Dailey’s model of hospitality is about greater than meals. The founder and CEO of Potomac Hospitality Group (PHG) has spent almost a decade constructing experiences that honor tradition, neighborhood, and connection — from Prince George’s County kitchens to luxurious eating activations that would sit comfortably beside any five-star vacation spot.

Her signature occasion, the Fried Chick’n & Champagne Secret Supper Expertise, began as a small, heartfelt celebration for native changemakers. Immediately, it’s one of many DMV’s most anticipated cultural dinners — a night that blends consolation meals, magnificence, and storytelling in a means solely Dailey may think about.

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“We do lots of work in the neighborhood all year long,” she says. “We wished to have fun different individuals and firms doing the identical factor. So we requested ourselves, how will we merge the consolation meals individuals know us for with the posh experiences we additionally create? And truthfully, what’s higher than champagne with fried rooster?”

This 12 months’s sold-out Secret Supper carried a “Juke Joint” theme — a nod to the Southern areas the place meals, music, and reminiscence as soon as lived aspect by aspect. The occasion took over Hennessy Creek in Brandywine, Maryland, the place greater than 200 company gathered for an evening that felt nostalgic and forward-moving on the identical time.

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“For us, the juke joint was like house,” Dailey says. “However truthfully, this one was more difficult for our workforce as a result of these are issues individuals could already be accustomed to. So we had to determine the right way to elevate that have.”

The night rolled out in three “actions,” beginning with a bluesy cocktail reception earlier than company moved throughout the grounds for dinner. Chef Saon Brice (Meals Community, Blk Swan) designed a menu that honored the period whereas pushing it into fine-dining territory, paired with Ezra Allen’s cocktails from CAnECollective. Later, “The Voice” alum Tamara Jade lifted the power even larger with a dwell efficiency earlier than the group entered the juke joint house to bop the evening away.

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“We’re in a position to inform tales by means of meals,” Dailey says. “After we work with cooks, we inform them: you've gotten a narrative to inform, and that is your likelihood to shine a light-weight on a second in our historical past.”

PHG’s dinners have explored themes ranging from Moroccan traditions to farm-to-table cooking, at all times with a watch on the African diaspora. The juke joint dinner, held in a renovated barn on Black-owned land, captured that duality: honoring the previous whereas making house for the current.

“It was our means of celebrating who we're as a individuals and the way far we’ve come,” she says. “The house was lovely, however determining the right way to remodel it — that was the attractive battle.”

<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" data-id="1147359" src="https://blackenterprise-prod.b-cdn.net/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2025/11/250920Secretsuper-9805-1024x683.jpg" alt="Candi Dailey, Potomac Hospitality Group" class="wp-image-1147359" srcset="https://blackenterprise-prod.b-cdn.net/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2025/11/250920Secretsuper-9805-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://blackenterprise-prod.b-cdn.net/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2025/11/250920Secretsuper-9805-300x200.jpg 300w, https://blackenterprise-prod.b-cdn.net/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2025/11/250920Secretsuper-9805-768x512.jpg 768w, https://blackenterprise-prod.b-cdn.net/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2025/11/250920Secretsuper-9805.jpg 1106w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px"/> Images Courtesy of Potomac Hospitality Group

Past the meals, Dailey is intentional about how company interact with each other.

“There’s energy in serving another person,” she says. “Our dinners are family-style on objective. While you go a plate to any individual, dialog begins. You ask the place they’re from. And earlier than you understand it, you’re constructing neighborhood.”

Typically these connections develop into one thing even greater. At PHG’s first Fried Chick’n & Champagne dinner three years in the past, two company — a politician and a businessman — met on the desk. They later partnered on a $90 million improvement challenge in North Carolina.

“That’s to not say that occurs at each dinner, nevertheless it goes to point out you the true energy of connection, proper?” Dailey says.

Dailey and her husband, Jason, launched PHG in 2016. Immediately, the corporate has 42 workers and a footprint that reaches far past its Prince George’s County roots.

“When one in every of our workers buys a home or sends their baby to school, I’m actually blissful,” she says. “It means as a enterprise mannequin, we’re doing one thing proper. Folks rely on the work we’re doing — and that retains us going.”

For Dailey, hospitality is in her blood. She traces it again to the tables of her childhood, her father plating mac and cheese, fried rooster, and all of the fixings for anybody who wanted a meal.

“A few of my first actual reminiscences are soul meals and the artwork of internet hosting and taking good care of individuals as a result of my dad and grandmother had been at all times cooking for individuals within the neighborhood,” she remembers. “My core reminiscences are these issues, serving individuals after which meals. I’m very lucky I get to do what I at all times was round since I used to be a child.”

PHG places that very same spirit into the neighborhood it serves. The group helps native colleges, leads gardening applications, hosts a Senior Friendsgiving dinner every year, and throws one of many space’s most beloved cultural occasions: Ruby’s Household Reunion, named after Dailey’s grandmother. For simply $20 a ticket, almost 20,000 individuals collect every summer season to have fun with meals, music, and household.

“I hope individuals understand it’s extra than simply about serving meals,” Dailey says. “It’s about actually making an influence. Our objective is to serve for the higher good — by means of meals and storytelling.”

As PHG approaches its tenth anniversary, Dailey is already planning the subsequent chapter. In 2026, Fried Chick’n & Champagne will increase to California, with plans to host a Secret Supper expertise at a Black lady–owned resort and vineyard close to Sacramento. Further dinners are slated for Martha’s Winery throughout Black Movie Competition Week.

“We’ve already acquired 4 on the calendar, together with all the opposite occasions we do,” Dailey tells BLACK ENTERPRISE.

Past 2026, Dailey stays clear about what she hopes th elong-term legacy shall be for her enterprise.

“The legacy is that we care,” Dailey tells BE. “We’re making individuals really feel good by means of meals, by means of connection, by means of tradition. I hope on the finish of the day, individuals are saying we do these superb occasions which might be intentional about celebrating who we're as a individuals, by means of meals and the way we assist join the dots for others. I'd love for that to be our legacy.”