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. Right now, it’s one of many DMV’s most anticipated cultural dinners — a night that blends consolation meals, magnificence, and storytelling in a approach solely Dailey might think about.
“We do loads of work in the neighborhood all year long,” she says. “We wished to rejoice different individuals and firms doing the identical factor. So we requested ourselves, how can we merge the consolation meals individuals know us for with the posh experiences we additionally create? And actually, what’s higher than champagne with fried hen?”
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 facet by facet. The occasion took over Hennessy Creek in Brandywine, Maryland, the place greater than 200 visitors gathered for an evening that felt nostalgic and forward-moving on the similar time.
“For us, the juke joint was like residence,” Dailey says. “However actually, this one was tougher for our group as a result of these are issues individuals might already be accustomed to. So we had to determine methods to elevate that have.”
The night rolled out in three “actions,” beginning with a bluesy cocktail reception earlier than visitors 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 vitality even increased with a stay efficiency earlier than the gang entered the juke joint house to bop the evening away.
“We’re in a position to inform tales by meals,” Dailey says. “Once we work with cooks, we inform them: you have got a narrative to inform, and that is your probability to shine a lightweight 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 an eye fixed 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 approach of celebrating who we’re as a individuals and the way far we’ve come,” she says. “The house was lovely, however determining methods to remodel it — that was the gorgeous wrestle.”
Past the meals, Dailey is intentional about how visitors have interaction with each other.
“There’s energy in serving another person,” she says. “Our dinners are family-style on function. Once you move a plate to any person, dialog begins. You ask the place they’re from. And earlier than 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 visitors — a politician and a businessman — met on the desk. They later partnered on a $90 million growth challenge in North Carolina.
“That’s to not say that occurs at each dinner, but it surely goes to indicate you the true energy of connection, proper?” Dailey says.
Dailey and her husband, Jason, launched PHG in 2016. Right now, the corporate has 42 workers and a footprint that reaches far past its Prince George’s County roots.
“When considered one of our workers buys a home or sends their baby to varsity, I’m actually glad,” she says. “It means as a enterprise mannequin, we’re doing one thing proper. Individuals depend upon 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 hen, and all of the fixings for anybody who wanted a meal.
“A few of my first actual recollections are soul meals and the artwork of internet hosting and caring for individuals as a result of my dad and grandmother had been at all times cooking for individuals within the neighborhood,” she remembers. “My core recollections 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 time to rejoice 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 affect. Our aim is to serve for the better good — by meals and storytelling.”
As PHG approaches its tenth anniversary, Dailey is already planning the following chapter. In 2026, Fried Chick’n & Champagne will broaden 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 Pageant Week.
“We’ve already received 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 will likely be for her enterprise.
“The legacy is that we care,” Dailey tells BE. “We’re making individuals really feel good by meals, by connection, by tradition. I hope on the finish of the day, individuals are saying we do these wonderful occasions which can be intentional about celebrating who we’re as a individuals, by meals and the way we assist join the dots for others. I might love for that to be our legacy.”
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