In today’s evolving marketplace, the importance of diversity in retail goes far beyond filling quotas. 

Building community, honoring culture, and driving innovation allow retailers to celebrate identity, foster connection, and challenge assumptions. 

No one embodies these principles more than Chef Laricia “Fab” Chandler Baker, founder of Can’t Believe It’s Not Meat, a fast-casual vegan comfort food spot, and Soul Vibez, a modern soul food restaurant, both located in Orland Park, IL. 

Through these brands, Chef Fab is providing a great example of how identity-driven entrepreneurship can shift the retail landscape and resonate deeply with diverse communities.

Here are seven in-depth insights from Chef Fab’s journey that reveal how diversity can and should be at the heart of retail.

1. Use Retail to Preserve and Celebrate Cultural Identity

Chef Fab grew up in an African-American family where food was a cultural cornerstone. Her menus reflect soul food traditions with a modern twist, featuring dishes that are both nostalgic and inclusive, such as vegan fish sandwiches and plant-based Italian beef.

“At the vegan restaurant, this one lady came in crying about the fish sandwich. She said, eating this fish sandwich brings me to a place when I used to go eat fish sandwiches with my grandmother and I’ve been vegan so long that I haven’t got a fish sandwich like this ever. So it brought her back to a place”, Chef Fab explains. 

As you’re building your brand, consider tailoring it around your lived experience. Identify traditions, values, or memories that are meaningful to you or your community, and use those to shape everything from product names to your store’s ambiance. Customers from all backgrounds connect more with brands that share genuine and relatable stories. 

2. Create Products That Serve Overlooked Audiences

Chef Fab identified significant gaps in the food scene: a lack of fun, flavorful vegan options and traditional soul food in Orland Park. Instead of choosing one, she launched two separate but complementary concepts to meet the needs that others ignored.

Her brands now attract a wide range of customers:

• Vegans seeking indulgent comfort food
• Flexitarians looking for meatless options that still satisfy their taste buds
• Local residents craving home-style meals with a modern twist
• Black customers who rarely see their cuisine represented in vibrant, inclusive spaces

Are there cultural communities, dietary groups, or lifestyle needs not being met in your market? Start by listening to customer feedback and then create offerings specifically tailored to those groups. Inclusion is both good for business and leadership.

3. Design a Space That Feels Like Home

Soul Vibez is a restaurant and a gathering space that feels like Sunday dinner. From fun music and colorful décor to menu items that evoke tradition, Chef Fab has created an environment that connects with people on every level.

As a retailer, it’s important to design with emotion in mind. Instead of just thinking about how it looks, consider how your space makes people feel. Add familiar touches like artwork, culturally relevant music, or welcoming language in your store’s signage. This will make it easy for people to see themselves in your store.

4. Make Inclusion a Business Strategy

Inclusion is a core initiative that guides Chef Fab’s operations in both of her businesses. Her plant-based menu options and culturally aware customer service ensure her space reflects and respects the people it serves.

Audit your business for inclusivity. Review your hiring practices, product offerings, marketing strategies, and customer service approach. Are you unintentionally excluding anyone? Are you offering options that accurately reflect the true diversity of your community? Make inclusion an intentional, daily habit, and watch your foot traffic soar.

5. Empower Emotional Connections Through Experience

For many customers, Chef Fab’s dishes evoke emotional responses tied to family memories. The food reminds them of home, family, and the comforting feeling of being connected to their roots. 

Retail is all about crafting those emotional moments that reflect the diverse lives of your customers. Think about how your retail experience can trigger memories of joy. This could be achieved through inclusive storytelling displays, product origin stories that honor heritage, or small rituals, such as playing music from a customer’s culture. 

Remember: emotional resonance, especially when it reflects someone’s identity, turns buyers into lifelong advocates.

6. Let Passion Be Your Brand’s Foundation

Before she opened a restaurant, Chef Fab ran a boutique. She had no formal culinary background, but she had talent, a vision, and a passion for making people feel good. As a woman of color, she brought her lived experiences and cultural roots to the table, building a growing restaurant empire grounded in authenticity. 

Don’t wait for permission to build something from your passions, especially if your background isn’t traditional or widely represented. If you see an opportunity that reflects your unique identity and gifts, lean into it. Formal experience matters, but your culture, drive, and perspective are powerful assets. Let your story guide your decisions, and it will attract the right customers.

7. Build a Business That Reflects Your Values

From refusing to serve low-quality food she wouldn’t eat herself to prioritizing joy in every dish, Chef Fab leads with personal integrity. Her values shape her business, not the other way around.

Here are a few ways to align your values with your retail operations:

• Only sell what you genuinely believe in. Chef Fab made it clear she wouldn’t push a product she wouldn’t eat or enjoy herself. This created trust with customers and set a quality standard.
• Design your business to reflect your personal and cultural values. Through the music, décor, and the food itself, Soul Vibez was crafted to reflect her African-American roots and sense of joy.
• Let storytelling guide your offerings. Many of Chef Fab’s dishes are based on her own experiences and family meals, turning food into memory and meaning.

These types of integrity-led decisions are what make Chef Fab’s brand stand out.

Diversity in retail starts at the top, and it’s more than who you hire or what you sell. People want to understand what you stand for.

8. Invest in the Community

Chef Fab is building a business for the community. By hiring locally, celebrating her heritage, and offering comfort food that resonates emotionally, she’s fostering community wealth and pride.

Here are a few ways she invests back into her community:

• Offering job opportunities to locals
• Sharing her space with others in need
• Creating a destination that attracts customers from across the region

Chef Fab demonstrates that listening, adapting, and being present in your neighborhood are powerful ways to lead.

Stay attuned to the needs around you, especially in times of change. When your business becomes part of the solution, your community becomes part of your success.

Conclusion

Chef Laricia Chandler Baker understands the importance of diversity in the retail industry. Her work bridges gaps between food and memory, customer and culture, as well as community and commerce. 

If you’re launching a business or reshaping an existing one, her story offers a roadmap for making your brand more inclusive, authentic, and memorable.

To build the future of retail, we need voices like Chef Fab’s at the forefront, loud, proud, and unapologetically diverse.

We Are Retail is committed to highlighting Illinois’ diverse and dynamic retailers. If you loved learning about Chef Fab’s story and know a retailer who deserves recognition, Nominate A Retailer!