Inspiring Social Change Through Art, Food, and Community with Andy Shallal, Founder of Busboys and Poets Restaurant

Stories of Transformation

Andy Shallal is an Iraqi-American artist, activist and entrepreneur. He is best known as the founder/CEO of the Washington, D.C., area restaurant, bookstore, performance venue Busboys and Poets and local philanthropist. He is also known for hiring artists in the D.C. area to paint murals around the city during lockdown to brighten up the streets and make people smile.

Busboys and Poets is a community where racial and cultural connections are consciously uplifted… a place to take a deliberate pause and feed your mind, body and soul… a space for art, culture and politics to intentionally collide.

Through creating such a space, Andy hopes to inspire social change and begin to transform the D.C. community and the world.

In this episode of Stories of Transformation, Andy takes us on the journey of how Busboys and Poets came to be, and discusses the importance of creative expression, especially in times like these.

We also discuss Andy’s time running for mayor of D.C in an effort to seriously address the systemic issues of racism, health care, and education. Finally, we discuss the current political and cultural climate and get Andy’s take on the way forward.

We hope this episode inspires you to consider how you can create change in your local community!

For full show notes: https://www.baktashahadi.com/podcast

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Produced by: Dana Drahos

Edited by: Joseph Gangemi

Digital Marketing by: Katherine An

Theme music by: Qais Essar

Artwork by: Masheed Ahadi

Episode Music Credits:

Philip Daniel Zach- Unwanted Tears

Philip Daniel Zach- August

Philip Daniel Zach- Trapt

DearGravity- Chimera