She built a small business — and then a Black business incubator

It all started on a whim. In August 2015, in preparation for her new job as an assistant high school principal in Washington, D.C., Angel Gregorio got a manicure. As she left the salon, she noticed a “For Lease” sign on a neighboring building. Curious about the rent, she called the number on the sign. The landlord told her the rate depended on how the space would be used. She scrambled for something to say to stop him from hanging up.

“I randomly came up with ‘spice shop,’ just to keep him talking to me,” she remembers. “But once I said it, it made a lot of sense.”

Four weeks later, she opened The Spice Suite in that same unit in northeast D.C., selling original spice blends, honey and fresh-squeezed lemonade. The shop now nets more than $1 million a year, earning praise from Beyoncé and counting Stevie Wonder and actress Taraji P. Henson among its customers.

And since then, Gregorio has steadfastly sought ways to lift other Black entrepreneurs. Over the years, her efforts have evolved into an incubator for Black-owned businesses in D.C. “I was given this random opportunity, and I wanted to pay it forward,” she says.

Gregorio’s extensive community network made her a fitting co-host for Solidarity in Action, Mastercard’s celebration of National Black Business Month in D.C. During the event earlier this month at the Spice Suite, attendees heard from local leaders and entrepreneurs about what’s on the horizon for D.C.’s small businesses — including how Mastercard will continue its work to advance inclusive growth in the city through its In Solidarity initiative.

Black-owned businesses are on the rise, but they still make up only a tiny fraction of all U.S. firms for which that data is available, and research shows they have more difficulty accessing credit, even after they’ve established themselves.

In Solidarity is a Mastercard initiative that builds on long-standing efforts to advance inclusion and equality, with a goal of helping close the racial wealth and opportunity gap in the U.S., and with a special emphasis on cities. Most Black majority-owned businesses — nearly nine in 10 — are located in urban areas, according to the Pew Research Center, and D.C. has one of the largest shares of Black-owned businesses in the country.  

“The investment we make in cities, and in the equity work we do across the Center, is good business, and it’s good for the economy,” says Salah Goss, a senior vice president at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth. “When small businesses do well, we all do well.”

Paying it forward

Until that fateful manicure, Gregorio assumed she would always be an educator. Having earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology from Howard University, she worked as a teacher and counselor in D.C. for 11 years. She’d never thought about starting a retail business, nor did she have a particular interest in spices. The venture was so spontaneous, she hadn’t even had time to apply for a loan or seek investors before the Spice Suite opened. Instead she continued to work as a principal that fall until the business got on firm footing.