Shonya “Chef Royce” Williams thought her luck was finally turning around.
After recovering from health issues that temporarily derailed her career, she opened Soul Prime last May on busy Halsted Street in Lincoln Park. Surely the Black-owned “elevated soul food” eatery would stand out in the ritzy neighborhood and attract a curious clientele, she thought.
But by the four-month mark, Royce, 52, knew she was in trouble: On Sept. 13, her daily sales dipped to $800.
“That’s tragic,” Royce said in a text to a loved one the next day. “I don’t know what to do to improve my sales. I am so physically tired and drained every day, and I don’t have enough money to pay proper staff like managers … This is really tough.”
A day later, Keith Lee showed up.
Chef Royce didn’t know of the Las Vegas-based TikTok food critic, who has 15.5 million followers and tours the country, filming reviews of mostly Black-owned restaurants in his car. His influence on restaurants — through his 10-point rating system — is so powerful that national publications have dubbed it the “Keith Lee effect.”
Days after Lee’s visit and subsequent TikTok post, the restaurant was turning customers away. Months later, the video has 9 million views, and the small staff is still seeing a steady stream of business from Chicagoans and out-of-towners due to Lee, who they say has had a profound impact.
“The blessing that Keith Lee was to us was just absolutely amazing,” said Willie “Unique” Hearan IV, Royce’s 25-year-old nephew and employee. “That day changed our lives forever.”
‘Brown bag’ beginnings
Decades before she became a chef, Royce was a little girl on the West Side, running away from cooking duties.
“I would say, ‘My stomach is hurting,’” Royce said. “Any excuse not to be in the kitchen.”
Still, the lessons from her grandmother, mother, aunt and other women in her family stuck with her. By the time she was a young mother living on her own, she found her own love of cooking and aptitude for creativity. She even sent her daughter to school with luxurious lunches of pesto chicken sandwiches and turkey double-deckers with cranberry mayonnaise.
“My teachers and my administrators at the school, they would all ask, ‘Did your mom make you two?’” recalled Royce’s daughter, Tot Williams, 32, of River North. “They would all want some of my lunch.”
Royce soon became known as the “brown bag lady” in the late ‘90s, delivering lunches to hair salons, doctor’s offices and banks. She went on to run a restaurant on the West Side, a nightclub in Berwyn and a restaurant in downstate Danville. Before opening Soul Prime, she ran Kiss My Dish Soul Kitchen in Oswego from 2017 until 2019 when her health declined.
“I was suffering from some mental challenges, a lot of stress,” Royce said. “And then I suffered a stroke. And so, from that point, I was just dealing with my health issues, getting myself back to as much normalcy as I could.”
Royce hosted dinner parties in her home in Riverdale, and pursued an opportunity to open a restaurant in the Austin neighborhood, but the deal stalled.
Royce said she was left asking God, “When is it going to be my time again?”
That’s why winning the rental contract for the property in Lincoln Park felt like an answered prayer, she said. But failing to drum up business was devastating.
The ‘Keith Lee effect’
Still, Royce persevered. On Sept. 15, customers informed her Keith Lee was in town and encouraged her to reach out to him. She sent him an email, but didn’t think much of it; besides, she did not yet understand the breadth of his popularity.
That all changed when he arrived and doled out an 8 out of 10 rating for the collard green dip; 8.7 for the golden fried chicken with hot honey sauce; a 9.3 for the corn bread muffin; 7.9 for the catfish bites dipped in hot sauce; 8.3 for the peach lemonade; and 9.2 for the short rib tacos.
Then, he did something he never does: He went back inside and asked to speak to the chef.
Royce opened up about her struggles, and Lee matched the sales for the day, which were $2,200.
“The most profound moment was when he took my hand and he thought enough to just pray for me,” Royce said. “We took a picture and he started calling me his auntie.”
Hearan received a $300 tip from Lee.
“He was really nice and down to earth,” said Hearan, who lives downtown. “A simple gesture, a simple blessing or a simple act of kindness [goes] a long way.”
Lee visited other Chicago restaurants, including Cleo’s Southern Cuisine, Sharks Fish & Chicken, Uncle Remus and Harold’s Chicken, but Soul Prime’s story struck a special chord.
“People were coming in asking to meet the chef,” Tot Williams said. “People were actually leaving donations, just saying how much they believed in Chef Royce’s story … I think what the Keith Lee story did for Soul Prime is, it gave it a human story that a lot of people can connect with.”
Royce’s menu is also drawing praise.
“I’ve always loved her food,” said Letrusia May, a general contractor and business owner who has expressed partnering with Royce on a restaurant in Austin. “It’s not just regular soul food. She has a little upscale twist, her little added touch. And I just feel like, put in the right position, she definitely would thrive and can become a millionaire with what she does with her food.”
Going forward, Royce said she hopes to expand her staff.
“I’m not giving up yet,” she said. “I love coming here every day, even though I’m tired to the bone. I get a high when it’s 5 p.m. and it’s showtime for dinner, or when it’s 10 a.m. showtime for brunch on Sundays. I love it a lot.”
