Black Lives Matter Movement Bringing New Customers To Black-Owned Businesses
SAN JOSE (KPIX) - An important part of the Black Lives Matter movement is a push to support Black-owned businesses, many of which are struggling due to months of the coronavirus shelter in place.
At Gojo Restaurant in San Jose, one customer was trying out Ethiopian food for the first time.
"Instead of buying at the McDonalds, or KFC or Taco Bell, my kids would rather buy from a small business and a black-owned business. They want to try it out," said Sunny Lo of San Jose.
Mr. Lo said his children found out about Gojo from Yelp and Door Dash, which are featuring Black-owned businesses on their platforms.
When the promotion began last week, owners Andu Marie and his wife Sahai were swamped with business, mostly from new customers.
"Actually, it was dinner time and everybody was ordering at the same time. We couldn't handle it, ha ha," Marie said.
He said it's a good problem to have after months of being shuttered during shelter in place.
"If people have an idea that they want to support black businesses and they want to start with supporting restaurants, I'm happy about that." said Carl Davis Jr., the President of the Silicon Valley Black Chamber of Commerce.
Davis said the Chamber works to increase the success of Black owned businesses.
"Is it going to make a significant difference? We'll see."
Davis says the businesses in his chamber face the multitude of challenges faced by all small businesses, plus systemic issues like bias and a lack of access to credit and capital.
"We don't want to increase the number of businesses, we want successful Black businesses and we want to develop a pipeline of future Black business owners by having better training and education," Davis said.
