Seattle's Black-owned businesses invite shoppers to share the love on Black Black Friday

This Black Friday, Black-owned businesses in Seattle are asking shoppers to share the love as part of Black Black Friday. One of the participants explains why the event matters.

Here's how it works: Customers visit one of the participating locations and download an app.

Then, when they spend money through Dec. 26, they get a 20% discount, thanks to funding from BECU. The effort is organized by Intentionalist, an organization that promotes community building through local spending.

To understand why the event matters, you could talk to James Dixon, who runs the 23rd Avenue Brewery with his brothers David Dixon, Matt Dixon and Mario Savage. It’s one of very few Black-owned breweries in Seattle.

The brothers started seriously brewing beer at home during the pandemic. As their skills grew, some enthusiastic friends convinced them to open a brewery, and through a crowdfunding effort, they raised money for rent.

“That's kind of how it is,” Dixon said. “When you're opening a business and you don't have a lot of money, you got to figure it out.”

They leased a shoebox-sized space to rent in Vulcan’s development at 23rd and Jackson, just a few blocks from where they grew up. Vulcan has focused on providing discount retail space to Black-owned businesses.

Dixon said the brothers applied for loans, but couldn’t get any. This follows a pattern: Statistically, it’s harder for Black entrepreneurs to get loans.

“We don't use that as an excuse to not be successful. Right?” Dixon said. “We still push forward with what we have and make do with what we have... We’re bootstrapping.”

Some equipment they bought new. When they could, they bought used, driving from Marysville to Lakewood in pursuit of Craigslist deals.

The tables came from Black Coffee’s old space. The coffee shop is moving into the abandoned Starbucks at 23rd and Jackson. It’s an example of how Black-owned businesses in the Central District have always helped each other.

"We do tend to stick together as far as like sharing resources when we can," Dixon said.

Black Black Friday brings customers into this circle of mutual support.

Today, the 23rd Avenue Brewery is brews one barrel a week, which the brothers pour for customers on Fridays and Saturday afternoons. If the event brings in enough customers, Dixon hopes they can expand their hours to include Sundays, when football games are on.

James Dixon’s experience starting a business with community help harkens back to the late 1960s and early 70s, when his uncle Elmer Dixon helped lead the Seattle Black Panther party in the same neighborhood.

As loans were difficult to secure, businesses supported each other, James Dixon said. When Safeway would not participate, Elmer Dixon and others organized the community to boycott it.

Pressure from Black community leaders has led Vulcan to a very different approach.

Many of the smaller businesses in its development are Black-owned — Boosh (a plant store), Queencare (a skin care store), and Simply Soulful (a restaurant). Amazon Fresh is not, and its presence in the neighborhood has been more controversial, as it replaced a market that carried many products favored by Black families.

Still, the mixture of businesses pleases James Dixon.

“Honestly, like, shoutout to Vulcan,” he said. “It is kind of surprising that a large corporation like that would be so intentional about who they want their business owners to be.”

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s generous as Vulcan’s lease terms were, the business is still limited in its ability to grow. Currently, the brothers brew just one barrel of beer a week, after their day jobs. They’re open just two days a week, pouring pints for customers on Friday and Saturday afternoons.

Bob Luciano is CEO of the nonprofit Rainier Valley Community Development Fund, which uses a pot of money from Sound Transit to support minority-owned businesses.

Luciano said back when he used to work at Bank of America, he would not have been able to give a small business like the 23rd Avenue Brewery a business loan.

Regulations require banks to secure a certain amount of collateral. And then, Banks aren’t set up to sift through small business loans efficiently.

“It really does come down to that, the time it takes to underwrite a large real estate loan versus a small business that ‘has some hair on it,’ kind of rough, you know, with collateral shortfalls, this and that,” Luciano said.

That shortcoming of banks is why he works for a nonprofit today. He has fewer funds to disperse (a slowly growing pot of a little over $30 million) but can distribute them more fairly.

Luciano said one pattern he sees a lot, is a Black-owned business will get displaced due to development, then attempt to move into the new space. Maybe the new landlord is sympathetic, and the lease terms are reasonable.

But upgrading a new space for a restaurant, for example, can cost $200,000 to $300,000. Those kind of upgrades require a loan, and that’s where collateral matters. Far fewer Black families own homes than white families. And so, statistically, it’s far more likely that a white business owner will have the resources necessary to move into that new space.

An event like Black Black Friday isn’t enough to make up for those systemic problems, Luciano said. But it does get people out of their routines, and can help small businesses generate the cash flow necessary to expand.

“Go out and visit these businesses,” Luciano said. “I guarantee you're going to find some hidden gems once you go ahead and do that.”

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ecently, Elmer Dixon came out with a memoir, "Die Standing," tracing his journey from a Black Panther revolutionary to a global diversity consultant.

When it came time to host a book launch, James Dixon says the brothers knew they wanted to host it at the brewery.

Elmer's reaction, according to James, was "very, very, very prideful and happy, that we're back in the community. It's like, although we got gentrified out, we came back, we're staying and we're going to figure out ways to continue to be in this community. This is our way back in."