Women-Owned Businesses in the Bayview

Third Street, Bayview’s main corridor, has seen six new businesses open over the past year. Five of them are owned by women.

The five businesses, all located within the same few blocks on Third Street, have close ties. The owners of two of them, Auntie April’s Soul Foods and Trendsetters II, are sisters (their stores are next door to each other).

Beyond that, the owners of four of the five are friends, and were before deciding to open their own businesses.

These five businesses are part of a larger trend. The nonprofit Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center offers classes and financial to new business owners. Antoinette Mobley, the Center’s Third Street Corridor Manager, says the bulk of people in the center’s classes have been women.

They are also local. Bayview’s reputation tends to discourage outside business owners from setting up shop in the neighborhood. The benefit of this, Mobely says, is that Bayview businesses owners tend to be residents.

“They don’t have that fear factor,” Mobley said. “This is where they live; they’re not going to be intimidated by it.”


View Women-Owned Businesses on Third Street in a larger map

"For some reason, honey, it's the women who are doing all the work."
-Antoinette Mobley