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As Black History Month continues, here’s a list of Black-owned businesses you should know and the owners’ visions for the future.

SANMAN, founded by bothers Seth and Steven Rogers, stands for See a Need, Meet a Need. The arts and culture organization, dedicated to building a creative ecosystem, started with pop-up exhibitions at events in 2018.

“And then we decided to, hey, let’s get on the other side of this so we can do things more consistently and help more people in the process,” Rogers said.

It operates an 11,000-square-foot warehouse with a contemporary art gallery, two production studios and artists residency program in downtown Houston. SANMAN also has a nonprofit arm called the See A Need-Meet A Need Foundation.

Rogers said they are working on more spaces for people to gather and create. SANMAN is looking to open a flower shop and coffee bar, a community dark room and a podcast recording room. 

Growing up, Belen Bailey did not spend time in the kitchen.

“My grandmother was a maid,” Bailey said. “She didn’t know how to read and write. And she was always making sweets for the people she worked for. And I guess that was the main reason why my mom said you’re never going to be in the kitchen. I don’t want you to be in the kitchen. I want you to go to school.”

After immigrating to the U.S., Bailey learned more about her grandmother’s recipes from her mother in Peru. That knowledge, and Bailey’s refinement of the recipes, is what powers Sweets by Belen at 6001 Hillcroft Avenue, a bakery adorned in pink with decorations. Bailey shifted from her career as an educator to pay homage to her mother and grandmother with this bakery.

“I am sure my grandmother would be proud that everything she couldn’t dream about … her grandkids are doing that,” Bailey said. “This is a family business even though my family’s in Peru. Every time that they are here, they help me.”

Bailey’s bakery has myriad sweet Peruvian treats, including tres leches in 10 flavors and alfajores (cookies). Belen’s future goals include growing the business to multiple locations and selling her baked goods at local grocery stores.

Chanecka Williams, general manager at the bookstore Kindred Stories, loved the store’s concept and mission to center stories by Black authors when she heard about it. Williams, a book influencer (@headwrpreader), is passionate about finding new titles that may get overlooked and sharing those books. Williams started out as a book buyer at Kindred Stories, curating the store’s collection of books before organizing events for the business. 

Founded in 2021 by Terri Hamm, Kindred Stories have expanded event organization that ranges from school-author visits, its annual spelling bee and book clubs. Kindred Stories continues to organize events to foster community around stories by Black authors.

Williams said the store, at 2304 Stuart Street in Third Ward, is seeking to move to a larger location by the end of year after surveying community members on a potential location change.

“I think that with Kindred Stories starting as a pop up, they were already bringing people together. Even now that we have a physical space, if we have a pop-up, people are super excited because that’s the first way that they engage with us,” Williams said. “We are trying to duplicate that feeling of bringing community members together to celebrate literary arts in general. And so we decided we wanted to pursue more of it.”

Andrea Nunn founded the art studio, Fête 832, in Sawyer Yards a year ago. Guests paint figurines using a spoon and pipette at one of the studio’s two daily sessions every day except Sunday. The painting process starts with a guest pouring paint on the figurine and using the tools for finer details.

“We typically will carry a few figurines at a time, but we’re so new as a business. We want to expand that as well to offer other figurines for our guests,” Nunn said.

The inspiration for the studio stems from her grandmother’s love for collecting figurines. Her grandmother had a collection of about 50 or more.

“Seeing her love for art really was something that I grew to love as well,” Nunn said.

Fête 832 took off after its TikTok videos gained millions of views. Nunn said the studio’s sessions are booked several days in advance and she is seeking an additional location.

LetsDoThisHouston, in Third Ward, started offering bike tours of Houston in 2016 after founder Alan Moore graduated from Prairie View A&M University with a bachelor’s degree in Social Work and worked in the nonprofit Boys & Girls Country Group Home. There, Moore worked with kids and took kids out to different activities, including bike riding.

“They used to always try to get me to ride a bike. I was fresh out of college, and I was like, ‘I don’t want to ride a bike … I’m doing my work.’ They kind of inspired me during my tenure there to ride bikes,” Moore said.

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Moore got the inspiration for LetsDoThisHouston from biking around Houston, listening to music, and visiting a local spot for a bite. He hoped the idea would get people, especially young adults, active and out in the community. Letsdothishouston grew over the years to what it is today, with a yellow container labeled “3rd Ward Tours” housing an inventory of about 45 bikes at 3409 Emancipation.

Moore envisions his business encompassing more kinds of tours and special events. Because of December’s cold weather, Moore said, LetsDoThisHouston started bus tours. It also recently started offering boat tours.

“I definitely envision LetsDoThisHouston being a full service entertainment live event company. I envision us having a large warehouse space that is multi-use, that will host our bike tours. People can host private events. We’ll have a multitude of different services to offer in that one location,” Moore said. He also hopes to have bike containers across the region so people can explore 5-to-6 mile bike routes from different locations.

The DIY business, which began as a pop-up in 2017 by sisters-in-law Amara Aigbedion and Bukola Aigbedion, offers workshops in making candles, perfumes, soaps, bath bombs and diffusers

The Love & Make studio space can also host group events or instructors can go to location to teach a workshop. Love & Make has a virtual business that ships DIY kits globally and host virtual workshops.

Love & Make, in Rice Village since 2018, will also be expanding to a larger studio next door to the current location this year.

Amara and Bukola, with STEM backgrounds in engineering and pharmacy respectively, love the teaching element of their business. They teach their classes how to measure materials out properly, use the right temperatures, and calculate the amount of material needed, such as the ratio of fragrance to wax.

“As instructors, we really want to educate the people so they walk away learning something from our workshops, as well as making a really cool item that they’ll love and they can keep or they can gift it to others,” Amara Aigbedion said.