Inside Maroon by Kwame Onwuachi Opening Night in Las Vegas
I started crying at the dinner table.
Not full-on crying, but before I could stop it, my lip quivered and my eyes had begun to fill with water. The server, a kind man who had no idea of the sensitivity of the woman in front of him, stalled for a slight second. Possibly taken aback by my sudden display of emotion, he froze in confusion at first. Then, just as quickly as my eyes had started watering, his eyes immediately warmed. Finally understanding, a smile spread wide across his face. Placing the mushroom and caviar oxtail patties on the table, he looked at me and comfortingly repeated the two words that had initiated the tears of what would be my most emotional dining experience, “Welcome home.”
On Friday April 24, 2026 Chef Kwame Onwuachi’s Maroon Caribbean Steakhouse opened inside Sahara Las Vegas. Named after the Jamaican Maroons, it is the only Black-led restaurant on the Las Vegas Strip (after NFL legend Emmitt Smith’s Emmitts Vegas led by Chef Antwan Ellis closed in 2025).
As a Black woman with a history of hospitality writing, a love of dining, and a strong penchant for highlighting stories of Black culture (especially here in Vegas), I’d been following Maroon’s development for months. This past weekend I had the pleasure of dining alongside my mother at Maroon on their opening night.
I won’t bury the lead, the reality that is Maroon blew away all expectations. It’s culturally rich. It’s sexy. It’s refined. It’s warm. It’s authentically delicious.
And it’s very unapologetically Black.
The design is sleek, sexy, and modern with rich, jeweled tones and sultry lighting that looks straight out of a Barry Jenkins film. The food is sublime. Savory. Spiced to perfection. The Crawfish Mashed Potatoes (only $10?!) and the Curried Goat Agnolotti made my eyes roll back. I also deeply appreciated seeing a cocktail menu that is embedded with spice and actual flavors aside from just being tongue-numbingly sweet or citrus.
Yet, it was the richness of blackness that made my night at Maroon unforgettable. While also making me deeply emotional.
Everything seemed to consider us. From the lighting, to the music, to the color palate, to the menu, to the spice level, and beyond. From my corner table, I watched group after group of Black people filter in and out. My heart swelled with pride. Now, we may critique each other or roast each other a time or two, but I will always love the ways we show up and show out to support each other.
And, the service? Oh, impeccable. On opening night, when one expects a few hiccups there were none. Glasses were filled. Timing was prompt. Orders were correct. Recommendations hit the mark. Questions were answered in detail. Okay, well, my mother had a slight disappointment when we were informed that the Classic Braised Oxtails were no longer available. Disappointing, but immediately my mother and I turned to each other and laughed.
Oxtails already being sold out? If you know, you know.
When Chef Onwuachi came by to check on our table, I couldn’t help but slide him a cheeky grin. I smiled knowingly, “Y’all ran out of oxtails?”
He let us know about the oxtail fried rice as another great option. He turned around for a second to survey the room, no doubt noting another table yearning for his attention, or another guest to extend his hospitality. Yet, before departing he turned his full attention back on the women in front of him. The full weight and respect of who this man is and what he’s accomplished is present, but in the moment the familiarity of us rises as he gives his own small, knowing smile before playfully adding on about the already gone oxtail, “We’re a true Jamaican restaurant.”
I love my people lol.
It’s interactions as such that made Maroon feel like home. Combined with the soulful sounds emitting from an alcove in the back corner, where an all-Black band bathed in sensuous dark blue light played the likes of Lauryn Hill and Alicia Keys. (My God, don’t we look good in Blue light?!). In between the live music, a playlist of Kendrick Lamar, Jay Z, Mariah the Scientist, Ari Lennox, and more crooned in the background. Across tables, we all danced, swayed, clapped, and laughed happily together. Every element of Maroon seemed to fuse together with such thoughtfulness and intention. It felt like being wrapped up in a warm, rum-infused hug.
Yet, even with the impressive cohesion the team behind Maroon accomplishes, there’s still the lingering question of how will Maroon do in Las Vegas?
The ingredients it takes to sustain a restaurant in Vegas aren’t the same as DC, New York, or even somewhere like LA. Vegas is a city filled with beautiful restaurants touting beautiful food all with their own unique selling points.
What makes a hotel’s anchor restaurant in Vegas different is that the Chef is the brand. For Maroon, it’s not simply a Caribbean steakhouse Sahara is promoting. It’s Kwame Onwuachi himself. He is the face. The draw isn’t a rum-aged steak, it’s him. In that view, is Chef Onwuachi’s brand, is his presence, is his commitment to the Las Vegas community strong enough to weather the fickle Vegas loyalty, covert local racism, and current economic hardships?
These thoughts are on my mind as I watch him weaving his way from table to table communing with each and every guest. When Chef Onwuachi comes to visit our table, he doesn’t just stop by to offer pleasantries. No, he slides in the booth next to me, and gives my mother his full attention as she shares her feedback with him on the food, atmosphere, and everything in between. “I see us!” she tells him excitedly. “There’s so many of us here, I looked around and thought I was back home in Atlanta!”
He nods approvingly. “I had to bring my people,” he says. As they speak, I take in his demeanor. He’s assured, cool, and gracious. If he’s nervous or stressed, he doesn’t show. If he’s crazy excited and geeked, he doesn’t show it either. He’s professional, but approachable. Warm, but serious. Personable, but also slightly reserved.
My curiosity wishes to ask him how he’s really doing, or what he thinks this day has felt like for his team. I want to know what is the prayer he sends up in that brief moment of solitude he steals away? Throughout all this, when has he felt the most powerful? The least? I’m interested, for such a huge endeavor how does he find and sustain loyalty in a team, in friendships, in customers in a completely new city? The journalist in me is itching to know the realities, the raw, nitty gritty of what it takes as a Black Chef to historically open on the Strip in Las Vegas.
Though I wish I had more time to speak to him about the depth of the racism in Vegas, the unique struggles our community here face, and what we hope Maroon will be to us, I know I don’t need to belabor the difficulties to him.
He’s faced them head on.
He’s done what decades of local Black activists, chefs, and community leaders have fought to pave the way for him to do. He’s living it. He knows the realities better than anyone. It is that rare experience, that powerful, uncharted journey he’s on I am so eager to hear and humbly write about. One day, God willing.
Instead, I turn in the booth to look him in the eye and count on the familiarity of shared cultural history to carry the weight of my simple words. “We just haven’t had this here, especially on the Strip,” I tell him. “We just haven’t had us.”
And it’s not just what he says next, but the way in which Chef Onwuachi says it that kills any question of Maroon’s future and reaffirms the full weight of my belief in his commitment. He stands up, eyes locked straight on mine, and nods confidently, “Well, we’re here.”
And in it there’s four loud words attached at the end that go unsaid (but with us, are they ever really unsaid?):
And we ain’t leaving.
I believe him. Because he’s right, we’re here. And we’re not leaving. Growing up, my mother used to always tell us, “Home isn’t a singular place, home is wherever we are.” In this new, transitional era of Las Vegas culture, I believe we’re in good hands making a home inside the comfort of Chef Onwuachi’s gorgeous vision that is Maroon. The black community in Las Vegas is here. We’ve been here. And we will continue to be here, looking fly, laughing loud, and doing a little two step. Only this time we’ll be doing it at a gorgeous marble table with brown stew chicken, a giant bowl of crawfish mashed potatoes, and an Allspice Spritz or two.
Thank you Chef Kwame.
Welcome home Maroon.
By Zauni Tanil
