Inroads have been made in recent years to support diversity in Waco, even though the challenges for small business owners everywhere are significant: Inflation, supply chain issues, renovation costs, and demands for a quick return by lenders plague the market.
“The beauty of living in a community where small businesses thrive,” said Oh My Juice owner Denitia Blount, “is that it sets a place apart. Whenever I go to a town or city, I want the local flair. I want to feel like I’m somewhere different. When you go to a chain, you aren’t seeing what makes a place great. You aren’t tapping into the people. In Waco, people are drawn by what’s homegrown and the diversity of our small businesses.”
The Bureau of Labor reports a third of new businesses close within their first two years – a statistic that worsens for minority- and women-owned businesses. Blount couldn’t secure a loan to start her business in 2013 unless her husband, who has a successful nationally recognized business, co-signed. People of color face even more discrimination and other inequities. According to a recent Bloomberg Report, eight out of 10 Black-owned businesses fail within the first 18 months.
“The opportunities are here,” said Andreas Zaloumis, who launched his coffee roasting business, Thrst Coffee, in 2018 in the predominantly Black neighborhood of East Waco. “Business is based on relationships, and access to those relationships helps. Mentoring helps. Access to capital with flexible terms helps. Investors who are willing to not only put in money but put in their knowledge of business helps,” he said.
A longtime member of the Cen-Tex African American Chamber of Commerce (CTAACC), Zaloumis opened his first physical coffee shop at 1500 Colcord Ave., in January 2023. That year he received a $5,000 grant from the Cen-Tex Minority Business (CTMB) Equity Fund – a Chamber program designed to lend help to McLennan County’s minority-owned businesses – which he used for general operating expenses. Along with selling drinks, Thrst sells beans at its retail store and online, provides beans wholesale to other small Waco businesses, caters coffee services for up to 600 people, and rents out its space, including barista services. Passionate about creating community, he holds monthly events in the store featuring live music and poetry readings from local artists. “I’m a community organizer,” he said. “I want to bring things into the Black community that need to exist.”
So does the Waco-based CTAACC, which president John Bible says is constantly evolving. “Since COVID, we’ve seen more awareness of the inequities around business ownership in underserved communities than ever before,” Bible said.
In 2020, the Chamber created the equity fund to help minority-owned businesses bridge the financial hardships of the pandemic. Baylor University and TFNB Your Bank for Life contributed to the fund and helped raise money. Since 2020, the Fund has given out $175,000, Bible said earlier this year. “When major corporations and educational institutions contribute, it helps individual businesses grow stronger, positively impacting the city and county,” he said.
In May 2023, the CTAACC moved back to its original home on the historic, newly redeveloped Elm Avenue in East Waco, where it plans to build a 15,000-square-foot resurrected Center of Business Excellence beginning in 2025. “With the updated Center,” Bible said, “people won’t have to leave their community to receive computer access, job training, employment searches, marketing support, and go to classes that support opening a small business.” Additionally, Esther’s Closet, a free resource where women can pick out a week’s worth of donated clothes for a new job and get interview training, will receive about a third of the space at the center.
“Most small business owners join the Chamber looking for help finding capital, learning marketing strategies, and networking with other small business owners,” Bible said. Every year, the Chamber holds the BOSS Conference, offering panels of experts to discuss these topics, and hosts a separate awards banquet celebrating Black excellence in Waco. The 2023 award recipients included Waco’s first female and African American police chief, Sheryl Victorian, as Public Servant of the Year. Floyd’s Audio Capitol, a record and electronics store that has been continuously open since 1968, was recognized as the year’s Business Pillar. The Chamber also helps direct businesses to local, county, state, and federal financial opportunities, and connects members to training and certification programs at McLennan Community College and Texas State Technical College.
“Our purpose is to focus on small Black-owned businesses, but anyone can join the Chamber,” Bible said. “All women are welcome at Esther’s Closet. And we work closely with the Cen-Tex Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Waco Chamber of Commerce, and every organization. We want a vigorous economy for everyone. It takes everyone. Everyone has something to give.”
Dytrun Thirkill, vice president of the Cen-Tex Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (CTHCC), says two of the most important things minority business owners can do are become certified in the statewide Historically Underutilized Business (HUB) program and to be aware of the We all Win grant program, a federally funded program created and overseen by the city of Waco.
“It feels like now more than ever, there are more opportunities for a minority to start a business in Waco and be successful,” Thirkill said. “More people are aware of the available resources.”
To help CTHCC members network and bring in new customers, the Chamber holds a coffee and sweetbread gathering called Café Pan Dulce at a member business every month that’s open to the public. This year, it added “Office Hours,” a once-a-month chance to meet with Chamber representatives to ask questions or discuss issues, also held at a different member business each month.
Devin Li and Jaja Chen opened their bubble tea business at the Waco Downtown Farmers Market under a 10-foot-by-10-foot tent in 2018. Before then, Baylor alumni Li and Chen used to drive to Austin, Dallas, or Houston for the food they grew up with: Li immigrated from China at 13; Chen is Taiwanese. “Waco is only about two percent Asian,” said Chen. “Now I’m happy to say that Asian food is flourishing here. Back then, we had difficulty feeling like we belonged, particularly around food and culture.”
“It was a passion project at first,” she said. “We wanted to share our food and culture here because it felt joyful.” The tapioca pearls in what Americans call bubble tea, or boba tea, came from the city in Taiwan where Chen went to high school in the 1980s, she said. In Taiwan, boba is served with tea, shaved ice, and brown sugar syrup. “Taiwan has a lot of mountainous regions with premium tea farms and tea gardens. There is so much access to great quality tea, and that bred innovation.”
Similarly, Chen says she believes it’s the diversity of Waco’s small businesses that breeds creativity and innovation. “Texas is growing a lot and, with Baylor becoming categorized as R1, there will be even more diversity among the student population.” [Edit note: R1 denotes a doctoral institution with “very high research activity;” the R1 recognition came in 2021.]
They opened their first store in 2020 (Waco Cha, now called Cha Community) using premium loose-leaf tea, real milk, fresh ingredients, house-made syrups, and fruit purees, and added handcrafted dumplings to their menu. Last spring, they opened their second storefront nearby in Temple.
“We changed our name to Cha Community because we feel very strongly that by sharing our culture and being influenced by the local culture, we are part of this community,” Chen said. She points to menu items that bridge cultures, like horchata boba and pan-fried turkey dumplings around Thanksgiving. “We are very intentional in the ways we source items – both for our ingredients in our food and drinks and for our retail shops – from sustainable and/or Black, Indigenous, and people of color vendors because of our commitment to diversity and equity,” Chen said. “Ninety-five percent of our team identifies with a historically marginalized or underrepresented community. We believe this commitment to inclusion also leads to extremely low team turnover rates. Our team members stay on average for three to four years.”
Building community is also key for Kattie Jones, who launched her custom T-shirt and hat embroidery business, The Hatstand, with her husband Charles in East Waco in December 2021. “We knew we wanted to be in East Waco where my husband grew up, and we wanted to be part of the community,” Jones said.
The Hatstand donates T-shirts for local fundraisers, sponsors baseball teams, donates urban wear clothing from their store to high school families for their school clothes, and does embroidery for the Waco police chaplain’s shirts. The core of their business, Jones says, is small orders. “Larger T-shirt and embroidery companies have minimum orders. We can do one to 1,000 items. Many small businesses here, like barbershops or small roofing companies or restaurants, come to us for shirts and hats for their employees because they don’t need a lot.”
The couple is looking for another embroidery machine to take on more business and would like to investigate whether or not student groups at Baylor might be interested in custom-made T-shirts and hats.
Working with local small businesses is very important to Baylor, says Jeremy Vickers, associate vice president of external affairs. “We believe a strong business community in Waco is good for Baylor. We also see that minority- and women-owned businesses don’t get their fair share, and as a Christian institution, we believe we should empower and support organizations and people who are not always given the opportunity to grow. And,” he adds, “we want our base to look like our student and faculty and staff, which is very diverse.”
“Baylor invites ethnic and small food vendors from Waco into the student union on a rotating basis throughout the year in a program called Revolve,” Vickers said. “Baylor also features a list of 55 to 70 businesses on its website that offer discounts to Baylor Students, called Waco Perks, to encourage students to frequent local businesses and for the last year-and-a-half, Baylor has put on fairs for Waco business owners who want to learn about procurement practices and processes at the university to educate and train folks on how to do business with Baylor.”
“Everything helps,” added Oh My Juice owner Blount, who had an eight-week slot in the Revolve rotation at Baylor. “It’s always a struggle to run a small business. You’re going to run out of money. You’re going to make mistakes. Not everyone will face the same adversities,” she adds, noting that in 2021 her store flooded and was closed for six months after the shock freeze in Texas. “But I can guarantee you will have adversities,” she said. “It just comes with the territory. You have to learn to face your fears and be determined. You have to be resilient and keep going.”
With that comes a side benefit, she adds: “A common struggle brings people together,” Blount said. “The thing about the small businesses in Waco is that there is this unique camaraderie. There is a dynamic of camaraderie among small business owners here. It’s a camaraderie I had never felt before opening my business. It’s a unique inner-working that customers and tourists can feel. It makes Waco special.”
