Every story from the ongoing series

All through 2021, the Akron Beacon Journal has spotlighted black entrepreneurs within the space with our “Give attention to Black-owned companies” collection. 

The collection will proceed sooner or later, however here is a have a look at companies beforehand highlighted. 

Candy and Savvy

Savannah Griggs, 24, of Copley, has turned that demand right into a home-based baking enterprise, Candy and Savvy.  The native, Black-owned enterprise focuses on customized truffles, cupcakes and chocolate-dipped gadgets and has a storefront on the best way.  

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: Copley grad meets demand with bakery business

Distinguished Gents Tonsorial

Distinguished Gents Tonsorial is at 950 Frederick Blvd. off Copley Highway subsequent to the Save A Lot within the metropolis’s Maple Valley neighborhood. It has 4 barber chairs and a reception space with a sofa, loveseat and occasional desk. A pair of bearded lizards perched on a log in an aquarium maintain watch.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned Businesses: Butchie Da’Barber aims to build community

Bizzy Beads Boutique

That spotlight to tiny element has made Kimberly Camp’s miniature meals charms, earrings and necklaces greatest sellers at her enterprise, Bizzy Beads Boutique.

“Folks love the meals as a result of it is distinctive,” mentioned Camp, who’s impressed by on a regular basis meals she sees individuals consuming.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: Bizzy Beads Boutique gets creative with food, polymer clay and resin

G. Stephens Inc.

The corporate began small in 1992 when proprietor and founder Glenn Stephens first tried to interrupt into an business that had few minority or feminine individuals. The enterprise started with 5 workers in a single workplace in Akron and grew to a employees of fifty, nonetheless primarily based in Akron, but in addition with workplaces in Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo, Youngstown and Pittsburgh.

Extra:Black-owned businesses: G. Stephens leaves mark on Akron with projects, diversity efforts

FutureGen Comics

So what do you do after creating after which closing down a profitable enterprise that purchased and offered hard-to-find, typically out of date however nonetheless useable nuclear energy plant elements and supplies on behalf of FirstEnergy and others?

How about constructing a comic book ebook/media and advertising and marketing enterprise that now boasts a steady of 130 characters (a lot of them megapowered), employs 11 freelance artists from Northeast Ohio, and has achieved work for different organizations together with The LeBron James Household Basis.

Meet Twinsburg resident Keith Harris, proprietor and writer of FutureGen Comics.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned business: Northeast Ohio comic book company FutureGen creates characters and fun

LJ Audio Enhancement

Joseph Easton Sr., 52, proprietor of LJ Audio Enhancement, began out as an digital technician in 1992 after graduating from Buchtel Excessive Faculty and attending the Nationwide Institute of Know-how commerce college.

Extra:Black-owned Businesses: LJ Audio Enhancement marks 20 years

SandiCare

Registered nurse Delphenia Gilbert was first impressed to work with individuals with mental and developmental disabilities after what she noticed and skilled throughout her 16-year-long tenure as an Ohio college nurse.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned business: SandiCare provides adults with special needs the skills to thrive

Studio Why Not Your Hair

West Copley Highway has an extended historical past of private care companies, says Fannette Morris, who owns Studio Why Not Your Hair on the nook of Copley Highway and Nome Avenue.

Initially from Akron, Morris returned to Ohio 4 years in the past after dwelling in Atlanta. Her first salon after returning was on Trade Road, which she operated for 2 years earlier than opening store at her present location.

“It’s a full-service salon serving to ladies embrace their very own pure hair,” she mentioned.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned Businesses: Studio Why Not Your Hair owner comes home to Maple Valley

Diamond District Meets the Wig Hive

9 months in the past, Tierra Brown requested Denise Watkins a query that girls have been posing to one another for hundreds of years.

“Will you do my hair?”

From that straightforward request, the 2 ladies realized they each made and offered wigs out of their houses and had related enterprise targets. 

However as a substitute of turning into rivals, Watkins and Brown determined to assist and study from each other, and the 2 ladies made their partnership official with the grand opening of the Diamond District Meets the Wig Hive, a merger of their respective companies that may function a one-stop store for all issues hair. 

Extra:‘Will you do my hair?’ Women entrepreneurs collaborate on one-stop hair shop in Tallmadge

Items

Randi Woods desires to vary how individuals relate to their our bodies.

After years of struggling to search out inexpensive, secure and sustainable merchandise to take care of her delicate pores and skin and hair, Woods determined to take issues into her personal arms. 

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: Goods’ wellness, beauty products promote better body care

Julia Belle’s Seasonings

When her mom died in 2015, Tanya Inexperienced ended up with a trunk stuffed with cookbooks and recipes at the back of her automotive. Now she’s the proprietor of Julia Belle’s Seasonings, which sells spice blends and mixes in downtown Akron, in addition to throughout the nation.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: Julia Belle’s Seasonings a tribute to mom’s ‘comfort food’

Say Cheese Charcuterie By Ang

Say Cheese provides a wide range of bins, boards and spreads that may embrace cured meats like sopressata, wine-infused salamis and prosciutto; cheese together with cheddars, brie, mozarella and goat cheese; dried fruits that Warren dehydrates herself; do-it-yourself chocolate-dipped treats; crackers, Caprese skewers, pomegranates and recent berries; honeycombs or baked items from Candy Women Tasty Treats.

Extra:Focused on Black-owned businesses: Tallmadge woman capitalizes on charcuterie hobby

Huge Eu’es BBQ

Eugene Wilson Jr. mentioned his Cuyahoga Falls eatery, Huge Eu’es BBQ, is a tribute to his late father.

Huge Eu’es opened at 1730 Portage Path in 2016.

Wilson mentioned his dad, Eugene Sr., who died in 2013, needed to open his personal barbecue place. He was a upkeep employee for the Stark County Park Providers who loved cooking for household and mates.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: Owner says Cuyahoga Falls barbecue eatery is tribute to his dad

Sensible Towing & Salvage

A ardour for vehicles led Ellet Excessive Faculty graduate William A. Sensible into enterprise promoting automotive elements from his mother’s driveway. Now, Sensible owns his personal towing enterprise and salvage yard.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned business: Wise Towing & Salvage, from mom’s driveway to 24-7 service worth $1 million+

Wilkinson Funeral House

It took a imaginative and prescient and years of onerous work for Brandee Wilkinson to grow to be the primary Black lady to personal a funeral residence within the metropolis.

Considered one of 4 such Black-owned companies within the Akron space, Wilkinson Funeral House opened for enterprise two years in the past within the former J.E. Scott Funeral House on South Arlington Road in East Akron, a block north of East Wilbeth Highway.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: Wilkinson ‘honored to be chosen’ to operate funeral home

Speedy iRepair

“I began doing a little analysis so far as how can I work out easy methods to work for myself. And, one way or the other, someway, i-Telephone restore, sensible telephone restore discovered me, or I discovered it,” he mentioned Monte Vales.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned business: Speedy iRepair keeping busy in Wallhaven

My World Studios

“I needed to be the individual that I wanted,” Charise Bryant mentioned. “As a result of after I was 18, it was onerous to discover a mentor. It was onerous to search out somebody that may enable you step-by-step.”

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: Akron studio creates artist’s world

Our Brown Boy Pleasure

At 8 years outdated, Dee Davis is the CEO. The corporate has a bimonthly subscription service field that options toys, coloring books, firm merchandise and different goodies aimed toward telling brown boys like Dee that they are often something they need on the earth.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: 8-year-old CEO uplifts kids like him with Our Brown Boy Joy

Welcome to the Pit

After two years in enterprise, Toby and Margo Easterling took benefit of the two-month pandemic shutdown final yr to rework “Welcome to the Pit,” their 24/7 gymnasium within the Eastgate Plaza in Akron’s Ellet neighborhood.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned Businesses: Welcome to the Pit offers wide variety of training

George’s Grills

One may be shocked to see a well being care skilled behind an angle cutter, spewing sparks whereas chopping right into a 55-gallon drum. However Larenda Walker is constant a convention began by her late grandfather, George Hammett, who made barbecue grills that turned recognized all through the world.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned business: George’s Grills builds on grandfather’s legacy

PrettyBull Restricted

A love for braiding hair and styling her college mates’ locks led to a full-time profession for one Twinsburg lady.

Saitta Bridges-Pennington, the proprietor of PrettyBull Restricted in Twinsburg, mentioned she first began braiding her personal hair at 8. She then started braiding her friends’ hair at 14 and took cosmetology in highschool.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned Businesses: Hair braiding becomes the mane event for Twinsburg woman

The Pierogi Girl

Marcus Walker by no means tasted a pierogi till he met Autumn Johnston.

“I mentioned, ‘The place have you ever been all my life?’ ” — to each to Johnston and pierogi.

Collectively, the couple now personal and function The Pierogi Girl, which churns out between 20,000 and 30,000 hand-crimped pierogies — in 80 varieties — every week from its non-public business kitchen in Akron’s Middlebury neighborhood.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: The Pierogi Lady meets her ‘pierogi guy’ and Akron business sizzles

seventh Flooring Clothes

Preston Clark and Frank Miller III have been mates since they had been youngsters. As adults, additionally they are enterprise companions, together with doing tax preparation.

However they’re higher referred to as the homeowners of seventh Flooring Clothes, an Akron trend enterprise that makes T-shirts, hats, hoodies, a brand-new line of eyewear, and extra. 

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: 7th Floor Clothing’s success boosted by boldness, timing and a hat-wearing guy named LeBron

Peek Institute Coaching and Growth

A Twinsburg Township lady is utilizing her love of educating to assist people, municipalities, organizations and companies bridge their gaps in understanding about variety and race relations.

“It was God-ordained,” mentioned Constance Peek-Longmire, Ph.D., who taught programs on variety at Kent State College for 10 years.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: Twinsburg Township woman helps tackle diversity issues

Montessori Life preschool

When Lydia Stephens and her husband briefly moved to Washington state a number of years in the past for his army profession, Stephens mentioned one of many first issues she requested the opposite army households was what they did for preschool care.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: New Macedonia preschool aims to give children a Montessori Life

The Tea Girl

Since her husband’s loss of life in 2017, Woods Baylor has turned their annual at-home occasion into the The Tea Girl, a reservation-only tea room in downtown Akron’s Delaware Constructing. 

Extra:Focus on Black-owned Businesses: Akron’s Tea Lady is third of five generations of entrepreneurs

Let’s Heal Spa

Someday, whereas trying to find a staff’ compensation line within the Yellow Pages, Lee stumbled throughout the telephone variety of the Cleveland Faculty of Therapeutic massage Superior Bodywork Institute.

“I ended up calling the therapeutic massage college and I began asking questions. And I don’t know why,” Lee mentioned. 

“I name it divine intervention. I knew that I couldn’t afford it, I don’t know why I used to be asking questions, however he informed me … ‘we are able to work with you,’” she mentioned.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned business: Healing people through massage therapy

Ripp Metropolis Health and Work Nicely Well being Options

Al Wilson operates Ripp Metropolis Health and Work Nicely Well being Options at 9224 Darrow Highway in Twinsburg, which he has run for greater than 5 years. Wilson added that the ability was in the course of an enlargement, with the gymnasium part scheduled to reopen April 2. The enlargement has “been a year-long course of.”

Extra:Ripp City Fitness in Twinsburg ‘not the typical gym’

Sauhmor Magnificence

Dwynica Pendleton’s creation of cosmetics enterprise Sauhmor (pronounced “some extra”) Magnificence dates again in 2013.

“I used to be going to the College of Akron” and majoring in trend and merchandising, Pendleton mentioned. She had a facet enterprise on the time to assist usher in cash.

 “I used to be promoting Mary Kay, the cosmetics firm,” she mentioned. “I went round to totally different ladies’s dorm rooms and was performing complimentary facials and displaying them easy methods to apply the make-up.”

Extra:Focus on Black-owned Businesses: Sauhmor Beauty aims to empower ‘on the go’ women

Magna Wine Boutique

Brittany Wiley and her husband, Dre, are providing distinctive manufacturers of wine and educating clients inside their new Cuyahoga Falls wine store and tasting room.

Magna Wine Boutique is open for enterprise at 2115 Entrance St., Suite 115. It’s the second store that the Wileys have opened. Their first retailer opened in Could in Bedford.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: New wine shop, tasting room in Cuyahoga Falls offers unique brands, education

Middle for Physique-Thoughts Concord

Gary Harris is the proprietor and operator of the Middle for Physique-Thoughts Concord, a Cuyahoga Falls well being middle specializing in tai chi (additionally spelled taiji) and conventional Chinese language martial arts that he inherited from his instructor, David Schenk.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: Retired engineer teaches meditation in motion

OH SNAP

Stepping off the elevator to suite 501 is like getting into a special world, and that’s the best way OH SNAP Photograph Lab proprietor Tiffany Roper deliberate it.

The doorways open to colourful paintings that says the brand new downtown Akron enterprise, a selfie museum crafted by native artists and the brainchild of entrepreneurial-minded Roper.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: Downtown studio for selfie enthusiasts is a work of art

Violin Bowman

As Jamieson Bowman rolled round on his wheeled stool and coaxed preschoolers with tiny violins to face on their marked spots on little rugs, he appeared and sounded like he was in his ingredient.

“Take a bow,” he exhorted 4-year-old Nora Callard and 3-year-old Anderson Ersahin, proper earlier than they launched into their Suzuki lesson Thursday.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: Violin Bowman engages families at his Suzuki studio

Princess for a Day

“With greater weddings, the rationale of getting married can get forgotten since you’re so centered on decorations and truffles and visitors. So after I see an intimate marriage ceremony, I see them being free and having enjoyable.” 

It is that form of small-yet-profound expertise Stephanie Singleton needed to recreate with A Princess for a Day, a Tallmadge venue specializing in micro-weddings, elopements and small occasions that really started earlier than the pandemic pressured a large change within the marriage ceremony business.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: Micro-wedding venue comes to Tallmadge just in time for pandemic

Reggie Brown

One man’s common lunchtime exercises on the Twinsburg Health Middle led to his second profession as a karate teacher.

Sensei Reggie Brown, who lives in Hiram, began his working life combating chemical spills and different environmental hazards for the the Ohio Environmental Safety Company workplace in Twinsburg, the place he labored for 31 years. Brown mentioned this was not his meant profession alternative.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: Growing Twinsburg karate school looks to rebuild after COVID-19

Breakfast in Mattress By LaCole

LaCole Suddeth-Odums was pregnant, hungry and laying in mattress with one query on her thoughts.

Why doesn’t anybody ship breakfast?

It wasn’t lengthy till she determined to attempt doing it herself. She posted a name for purchasers on Fb, and about 20 orders got here within the first day.

“After seeing that I mentioned: ‘That is one thing massive. I’m going to maintain pushing for it,”” Odums recalled.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: Breakfast food meets chicken joint in shared downtown Akron spot

Mizz Shakesum

The pink, purple, yellow and chocolaty-looking concoctions in Mizz Shakesum’s fridge at Northside Market seem like decadent treats.

They usually style like ice cream sundaes, pina coladas, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

Taylor McKinnie has deliberately designed these smoothies to be sneakily good for you, packing them with protein, fiber and vitamins she says many individuals don’t get sufficient of of their on a regular basis diets.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: Mizz Shakesum’s bottled nutrition tastes like dessert!

Akron Honey

The vacant lot across the nook from Brent Wesley’s residence in Highland Sq. wasn’t alleged to spur a brand new enterprise. 

He had a company job that paid nicely. He scratched his inventive itch as a musician on the facet. 

Wesley simply preferred honey. So in 2013, he purchased the lot, arrange some hives and figured he’d by no means have to purchase it once more.

However there was buzz across the neighborhood. Fairly quickly, Wesley had the sweetest product on the block.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: The ‘experimental beekeeper’ with the sweetest stuff on the block

A Higher Cleansing Service

Confronted with a possible layoff from his job managing business financial institution accounts, Antonio Goodwin determined to go work for himself.

And regardless of the pandemic, he is seen his firm develop.

“I by no means thought I’d be operating a enterprise in any respect,” mentioned Goodwin, a 30-year-old South Akron resident who left his job with FirstMerit Financial institution 4 years in the past to begin A Higher Cleansing Service.

Extra:Focus on Black-owned businesses: A Better Cleaning Service owner finds success

Kangaroo Kutz

Deone Slater is the third technology in his household to chop hair, however the first to open a barbershop.

Initially uncovered to the commerce by his father, a pathologist at Cleveland Clinic who loved barbering on the facet after his personal father handed the commerce right down to him, Slater determined to show his ardour and a household custom into Kangaroo Kutz Multicultural Barbershop.