![]() Having recently closed a round of capital financing, Bolden’s third location is set to open in March 2021 as part of the Boxyard Research Triangle Park, a retail community project housed in shipping containers, where shops will surround outdoor dining and live music. I learned about coffee the way people learn about wine,” he says, with pride of ownership. "I learned the process, from the plant to the cup. It was by 12 years of hands-on training and transition, Bolden says, “learning about business holistically, beyond just the numbers,” that he became an entrepreneur. ![]() “Beautiful Black and brown people conversing, being our true selves,” he says.īack then, before the tech boom, Duke’s economics track didn’t emphasize entrepreneurship. ” Bolden loved the look of the place, the atmosphere, and the cultural draw - the way it brought Black people together. “It’s this European-style coffee house, 17th-century, with beautiful woodwork, and late at night all of these brothers and sisters from Morehouse, Spelman, Morris Brown, Clark would congregate. You got this.’” The company name is a spin-off from those affirmations.īeyu Caffe was inspired in part by Atlanta’s Café Intermezzo. “In the irony of the universe,” Bolden says, “ entrepreneurship was sparked by those two events.”īack in New York, through the day-to-day challenges that have always been tethered to Black mens' lives, particularly in corporate settings, Bolden’s friends, Black men like himself, would encourage him. Around the same time his father passed, a company merger had changed the landscape at work. ![]() “Flying back to Atlanta for the funeral,” he says, he felt a resounding message: “Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.” Bolden says chasing money had been his singular focus as an investment banker. The Duke University economics grad and Georgia native was working on Wall Street when his father passed suddenly. "Be creative, focus on community relationships rather than competition, identify opportunities that solve problems, and go for them.”īolden’s Beyu Caffe was born from loss and revelation, somewhere between where he was and where he wanted to be. So, use this time to your advantage,” he reasons. Those are difficult notions in a time when everything is about playing it safe, he knows, but given “the realities of privilege, we’re another opportunity where the playing field is even, where people who don’t look like you are struggling like you. “Find your strengths and take measured risks,” he says. To the countless Black entrepreneurs just trying to survive another day, through the added challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bolden says do the opposite of what everyone else is doing, because innovation and collaboration are the only options. And for Black restaurateurs, the hurdles are multiplied, but the victories are great.ĭorian Bolden, owner of Beyu Caffe Hospitality Group, says the irony of America is its reputed opportunity for advancement for all, coupled with a system designed to hold Black people back. The path is never linear: real estate financing, payroll, customer outreach, and dozens of other hurdles await. Breaking into the restaurant industry is challenging for anyone.
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