Local Story: Bronx, New York
Majora Carter’s mission is to change the minds of Bronx residents. Instead of escaping the community, she is creating space to inspire success to remain in the Bronx. Their current business model allows for local investors to not only invest in but also teach others about investing and financial responsibility. The cafe also holds special events showcasing local artists too.
Visit website: boogiedowngrind.com
Why is “serving local” important in your community of the Bronx?
One of the things that hurts me the most is when people ask where I live now. I say ‘Manida Street in Hunts Point.’ And they say, ‘What? But why, you don’t have to live here.’ Because to them, I’m successful, and successful people don’t live here. That’s what we’re led to believe about our own communities. It’s part of a “Cinderella” story- “I pulled myself up from my bootstraps”- and then there’s a well-oiled machine of agencies: both educational and the non-profit sector that literally identifies the talented ones in our communities and go, “We’re going to pour resources in you because we know you’re not going to stay here.” And that’s generally what happens, I was one of those kids. Part of that story they tell us is that if you’re a smart kid, you should grow up and get out of here.
But why am I taking my God-given gifts and going to take them to somebody else’s community? Why are we taking our example, our money…all of those things and putting them in somebody else’s neighborhood as opposed to investing in ours?
People like myself, Amaurys [from Bronx Native] and Noelle from The Lit. Bar, who were all born and raised in the Bronx, are just doing our thing. This is what we know as part of living and breathing and we and our communities to really thrive on having good stuff around. We will seek it out. We know what quality is and we want it.
What prompted you to open the Boogie Down Grind Cafe?
Through my consulting firm, we surveyed more than 500 people in community meetings or standing on street corners by the subway station asking people what their hopes, dreams and aspirations for the community are. The things they liked were the same things that they would normally leave the neighborhood to experience: restaurants, bars, and parks. There was no such thing as a local living economy here. There just wasn’t. A Wi-Fi café was one of the things the people wanted. I didn’t [ know how to do this] but we had a great relationship with one of the landowners here.
We partnered with Birch Coffee and we started as their Bronx outpost. It worked for about six months until we both realized we had to switch the business model to whipped cream and flavors in their coffee. Birch Coffee does not do that, and our local competition was Dunkin Donuts, so we were losing every day. That’s when we opened up and rebranded. We started thinking: What do we want to be? What is our community if not hip-hop? It’s an homage to that and that’s why we named it Boogie Down Grind because Lord knows we know how to hustle and that’s who we are.
How do you find the Boogie Down Grind being of service to the community? Outside of being something that is from us and for us, what have you guys learned about your community?
Just by having this space, we can support folks that want to be seen in ways that other organizations don’t allow them to. We got a small grant from Bronx Council on the Arts before we had to shut down due to the Pandemic. When we re-opened in July, we arranged our Emerging Artist events to happen outside and would curate what was often their very first show, get the media to come out, and set them up to sell their work.
Community is an activity but you need places to do it. Service is creating this place, where people can be their best selves out there safely and in a supportive environment.. Why are we not building more venues for folks to be the keys to our own recovery? I find it tragic that we believe we’re not worth much. So even when we do grow up and do great things, we don’t take our assets and reinvest them where we are.
It became clear that unless we actually controlled some of the land and businesses here, we were always going to be at the whim of what other folks developed – and not necessarily with our best interests in mind. It used to be common for black doctors and lawyers to interface with janitors, all sorts of folks. Now, if you look at the neighborhoods that those folks left, they’ve never recovered. Essentially, poverty was concentrated in these areas along with everything associated with it from educational attainment to healthcare. There are systems designed to support poverty through different types of health clinics and “community centers” because we’re just going to assume that they’re never going to be anything but struggling. What are we doing to keep those who are breaking through that struggle? I’m doing this cafe and the programming associated with it.
Why do you love Hunts Point?
It’s like a small little town. I grew up here, so my family’s been here since the ’40s. There’s plenty of us who have been here 30 years, I’ve been here 50-some. What’s fascinating, is even the new folks, become enthralled with the sense of community that you find here. People really do care about each other. Since we opened this coffee shop, I think I met more people from this community than I did for the almost past 20 years..
Your website mentions that people in the community can invest in the Cafe. What does that mean?
The pandemic shut everything down this year and we wanted a little bit of a cushion once we reopened. We started to think about the lack of financial literacy in communities like this – so, we wanted to use this opportunity to help people see that not only can you help us by investing in the café but now, thanks to the Securities Exchange Commission’s new rules, people can invest in businesses for as little as $100. We use a crowdfunding investment platform as a way to educate people about how money can be invested in themselves. It was one of the most transparent systems out there.
We received more than 120 investors. Most of them, I would say, 75% of them, gave less than $300.
How do you define local?
If you live there, you’re local! However, coming from a place where some of my work has been misunderstood, the last thing that I want to do is define who is local or not. I’ve been accused of not being local because of the things I do. I run a coffee shop. Why? Because people said they wanted a coffee shop, we like good coffee, and we like nice things so we built it. It’s all about intentions and execution. Noelle put chandeliers in The Lit.Bar. She wanted it to look a particular way and people respond to how beautiful it is. If that’s considered bougie then there are Black and Latino people who can be bougie. Why would we go and experience it someplace else? That’s local. Her class is local, her quality is local, it’s all local. You can’t call that anything but the Bronx as far as I’m concerned.
Do you see the business model of the Boogie Down Grind café extending past the context of Hunts Point? How could other business owners in other parts of the country do what you are doing?
First of all, what we really want to do is take the Boogie Down Grind and create a sense of nostalgia in the same way that Cracker Barrel has. Or like the Hard Rock Café. They have one model, and they’re all over. They usually throw up a replica of a famous guitar and they serve the same menu everywhere.
We really want to build on Hip-Hop to reflect how it has evolved. I still want it to be called the Boogie Down Grind, but it’d be the Boogie Down Grind A-T-L or Philly. The inside would be representative of South Bronx roots and Hip Hop from that local community. We would work with any entrepreneur interested.
I’m a Christian, I take seriously that you love God and you love your neighbor. This is the manifestation of loving my neighbor. We don’t have to like everybody, but love is something very different. It shows, we’re here and I see you and this is about how we can grow together. If the pandemic has taught me anything, it is how deeply people need community.
Shop the store: boogiedowngrind.com
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