Running a business is rewarding, but it’s even more of a blessing when it’s with your family.

Could grocery stores be getting a celebrity facelift from NBA star Jimmy Butler? The Miami Heat guard recently filed trademark applications around his Big Face brand to include fresh produce, beverages, and baked goods.

Imagine a café where you can get your daily cup of coffee and a history lesson at the same time. Catrice and Jakyra Hixon’s coffee shop — Melanin Café — does just that. The couple recently opened their café in Opelika, Alabama with the hopes to serve quality coffee while celebrating melanin and fostering a peaceful environment, The Associated Press reports . The café is even more of a family affair with Hixon’s sister, Crystal Slaughter, as part of the team as the café’s baker. Black history is cleverly taught through the café’s menu in that “every drink has a name associated with lesser-known Black contributors and landmarks.” “We learned about Black history in school, but we only got civil rights, Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks,” Hixon said. “I wanted to bring forward people we don’t really know about, people like inventors, scientists and doctors.” Their menu also puts a focus on the local Opelika history, such as a drink named after Dr. John W. Darden — Opelika’s first Black...

Founder of Red Bay Coffee, Keba Konte , is no newbie to innovation. In 2014, the San Francisco native combined his passion for photographic journalism and coffee to create a Coffee Dojo that simultaneously served as the headquarters of Red Bay Coffee and a daily art exhibit that showcased his photography. With such creative ingenuity, it’s no surprise that Konte honed his entrepreneurial acumen when the COVID-19 pandemic hit hard. Due to coronavirus, Forbes reports Red Bay Coffee’s retail stores had to shut down resulting in an 85 percent decline in sales and a drastic reduction in his workforce. Now, that some of his six retail locations are reopened, he says the decline is only about 40 percent. However, according to Forbes , the Oakland, California coffee hub has seen a 350 percent increase in e-commerce sales since the start of the pandemic. Before the stay-at-home regulations, Red Bay Coffee’s supermarket sales from Whole Foods and Safeway made up 17 percent of overall sales....

What if you could transform a part of your everyday morning routine into a charitable act? This was the mission behind BLK & Bold, a Black-owned coffee company founded by Rod Johnson and Pernell Cezar. The childhood friends decided to venture into the billion-dollar industry to make each cup of joe count. Five percent of their business is donated to eradicating social issues, including youth homelessness and food deserts, according to Cuisine Noir . “We really wanted to find a way to impact that vulnerable demographic by doing something we do every day, which is enjoying a cup of coffee or tea,” Cezar said. “The vision of the brand goes back to amplifying contribution and awareness of how for-profit can be this engine for domestic impact.” Johnson and Cezar, whose previous careers involved higher education and retail merchandising, noticed a lack of representation in the coffee business. With the Des Moines-based startup, they hope to help educate Black consumers about the beverage,...

Red Bay Coffee, an Oakland-based, Black-owned coffee brand, just secured its Series A funding round. Photojournalist Keba Konte started Red Bay Coffee in 2014, creating a space where coffee and art could collide. David Drummond, the senior vice president of corporate development at Alphabet Inc., and Sundial Brands Founder and CEO Richelieu Dennis, helped lead the funding round for Red Bay Coffee. Red Bay Coffee is a pillar in the Fruitvale community–where it’s based–and uses its space to host panel discussions, screen films, and launch products. The company also sources its coffee from countries including Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi and more. In 2018, Konte told AfroTech “My home is Oakland.” “The spirit of Oakland is in line with Red Bay Coffee’s mission. There is an entrepreneurial and artistic spirit in the water here,” Konte said. Red Bay has also been a wholesale supplier for major tech companies like Facebook, Salesforce, Twitter, and Airbnb. “People all over the world...