The Business of Black Women Pushing Through Barriers

By Nayaba Arinde
Editor-at-Large

Hollis Barclay is owner of Bleu Fin Bar & Grill and the CEO of Hbar Holdings LLC. Her Crown Heights Bleu Fin seafood restaurant has a unique Guyanese flair. She came from a secure world as operations manager of CareOne Staffing, “procuring multi-million-dollar contract-based commodities and services within public sector agencies,” to deciding in 2019, to open a restaurant.

“After COVID and the employment checks stopped coming in, most of our customer base changed and came from the community, the kids on the block. We had to reduce the cost of everything. The new consumers do not have that disposable income, as opposed to people who traveled in from different boroughs.”

They did this amid the rising cost of food.
“You had to reduce your prices, and you had to absorb that cost. We all know how food prices spiked after COVID-19, with all the food supply issues in the country. You couldn’t pass on the cost to the customer.”

It is a Guyanese /Caribbean restaurant. Seafood, meat and plant-based, and customer faves; lobster, mac’n’cheese, chicken curries, and Rasta Pasta.

Great food, hard business.
“The biggest obstacle as a woman restaurateur is the lack of funding,” Ms. Barclay told Our Time Press. “You go for a loan, and most banks will give you $50,000, but you never really get that big push. You have to have creative marketing.”

Meanwhile, the change to the neighborhood is having an ill effect. “On my block alone on Nostrand Avenue, they have 7 weed spots. Four restaurants closed, including myself. People wanted to spend their money in the weed stores.”

Surely they wanted to eat thereafter?
“Yes, but they went to the delis for a sandwich and Chinese food. They were no longer buying good food.”
Circumstances have had her moving from Nostrand Avenue in Crown Heights to Bushwick, opening next month.

The move, she acknowledges, has her tweaking the menu for a whole new clientele; from Caribbean and African American, to probably more European-American.

“A slight twist. But, this market has a higher disposable income. They tend to spend more money than regular Caribbeans. We’ll have to adjust the spice just a little bit for the consumer. But, I don’t want to lose our flavor. It’s unfortunate that for us to survive in this industry we have to cater to the European market.

“You don’t want to lose your identity because you want to get the money in. If only our people fully recognized what we have and supported us, then you wouldn’t need to even cater to different segments of the population. Most restaurants cater to the ones who spend the money.”

Board-certified gastroenterologist Dr. Cynthia Quainoo loves nothing better than to be knuckles-deep in some intestines, or someone’s ailing gut. Really.
Born to immigrant parents from Ghana, Dr. Quainoo has over 10 years of experience in Gastroenterology/Hepatology.

“I find that older patients don’t use Google as much as younger patients, so they don’t know who they are meeting. So, because my last name is sort of ambiguous to some people, they are shocked when they meet me as a Black woman. They kind of cloak their shock by saying that I look young.”

The 47-year-old partner at Gastroenterology Associates of Brooklyn definitely does. “They ask me, ‘How many of these procedures have you done?’ Or, ‘What do your parents do for a living?’”

Why that question?
“They are trying to make it make sense – how is this Black woman a physician? They are trying to reconcile their thoughts with what they are seeing. At the beginning of my career, I would bring all those microaggressions home with me, and they would eat at me. But, now I have a different way of dealing with it.”

She found an older successful Black woman doctor and took her as a mentor because she “must have some pearls of wisdom. And the first pearl she gave me was it’s not your problem that they dislike or distrust you because you are Black and you’re a woman. It’s their problem to work out, and you can always politely give them an option, ‘Please if you don’t feel comfortable, feel free to see my colleague.’”

Dr. Quainoo said that she has been working at the practice since 2020, and became a partner in January 2024.

There are nine doctors, only two women, and only one Black woman. Dr. Quainoo.
During her residency, she looked after patients with liver transplants. “And I kind of fell in love with liver diseases, and that is part of the digestive tract, and so that led me into gastrointestinal disorders.”

She wants to encourage folk to consider becoming a physician. “I think Black men and women make up 2 to 4 % of all the doctors across the nation.”

Meanwhile, the physician said, “It makes me happy to know that there are Black women who travel from New Jersey, Philly to come to Brooklyn to see me because they are looking for a Black female gastroenterologist.

I wish there were more of us out there. I would encourage any of my young counterparts who are thinking of GI as a space to come and join us. It is rewarding.”

PR Consultant Sharon Leid can take someone from “What’s your name again?” to “The phone just won’t stop ringing.”

The publicity strategist is the founder of NetStruc PR and Ladies of 3rd Thursday, a Brooklyn networking and Black business building event.

Ms. Leid told Our Time Press, “Black women are always on the lower spectrum, but we’re always helping people, and giving out our services, and our work for free, with the perception that we will get it back. This happens in business – we are always the last ones to get funding.”
The good news is that Black women “are being more innovative.

Black women are thinking outside of the box, and how we can get business. How we can make connections. So I am always connecting with other Black women, and let’s see what type of partnerships we can do to help build each other.”

But there must be a change in tactics, she added, “People will go to my white male counterpart first because they think he has more connections than I do, and then they realize I have the same amount or more. Then they come to us when all their money is gone, and say ‘Hey listen, I need to use your services.’”

The moral of the story is, said the Netstruc Talks podcast host, “I encourage people to reach out to Black businesses. Reach out to women in business.

We know how to make things happen. We know the struggle. Although we have everything on our shoulders – with our families, we might have a 9 to 5. We take on all of that, and still make sure that our clients get top-notch.”

Ms. Leid started her Netstruc PR boutique in 2015 after being laid off from her City job in 2013.

She told Our Time Press, that what she learned doing public relations for the City was, that “small businesses were not getting exposure because they did not understand how the media thinks. So I decided to focus on small businesses and entrepreneurs.”

Ms. Leid set up Ladies of Third Thursday, to “build relationships and see who needed services from me, and the other women in the group. So because of that my network has grown with Black women businesses, Blacks and businesses. All walks of life.

And it led me to really appreciate Black media. People want to get on these mainstream networks not realizing that Black people are reading, and listening to Black media. I have to educate my clients.”