Chef Kristi Brown of That Brown Girl Cooks and her son and business partner Damon Bomar opened their much-anticipated "Seattle soul food" restaurant Communion in the Central District in late 2020. The fact that the restaurant and bar is located in the former site of Liberty Bank lends even more meaning to the opening of a Black-owned business in a heavily gentrified neighborhood: The building was home to the region's first Black-owned bank, opened in 1968 to offer financial support to African-American homeowners and counteract racist housing segregation practices. Brown derived inspiration for the menu from her food memories of the Central District as well as Chinatown-International District. Offerings include barbecue shrimp and grits, chicken wings, berbere grilled chicken, po' mis (a combination of a po' boy and a banh mi) with fried oyster mushrooms and catfish, and fried catfish "hood sushi." There's also a retail area with jarred cocktails and Brown's beloved black-eyed pea hummus for sale. Aside from James Beard, Communion also was named Seattle Met's Restaurant of the Year 2021 and Eater Seattle Awards' Best New Restaurant 2021, landed a spot on Condé Nast Traveler's Best New Restaurants in the World 2021 and the New York Times' Restaurant List 2021, and received a rave review from Meg van Huygen in The Stranger.