Patchworking Networks of Support: On the Digital Successes and Challenges of Women- and Minority-Owned Restaurant Businesses

The restaurant industry has become increasingly reliant on digital technologies for business operations, digital marketing, and promotion, especially amid and after the Covid-19 pandemic. This paper presents the findings of a two-year study exploring how women- and minority-owned restaurants in Chicago and Detroit encountered and overcame digital challenges in their day-to-day operations, across a range of levels of digital skills and literacy. Drawing from semi-structured and impromptu interviews with restaurant owners (n= 47) and participant observation, we apply HCI literature on infrastructuring and patchworking to highlight how restaurateurs’ experiences often run counter to the assumptions of a "typical" user. Indeed, they often must build and leverage their—offline and online—networks of support to overcome failing infrastructures, both within the restaurant industry and on digital platforms. Concurrently, we emphasize the importance of community building and social infrastructuring to overcome these challenges while also building up alternative networks of resources for their communities, especially considering identity-related inequalities and amid a global moment of crisis.