LANSING, Mich. — It’s been a tough year for small businesses across America with the pandemic hitting their bottom line hard, but the owners of one small business are defying the odds – and they’ve done it by overcoming a crisis not just once but twice. Maya Rodriguez has their story.
For sisters Nikki Howard and Jaqi Wright life comes down to a handful of ingredients.
Jaqi Wright, the furlough cheesecake: ”love, peace and cheesecake, and it’s cheesecake that started them off on a new journey while the two were furloughed during the federal government shutdown two years ago.
“we went through the holidays just praying that it would let up. and it didn't.”
Nikki Howard shared that “for new year's eve service, i made sweet potato cheesecakes.”
Jaqi Wright explained “she gave them to me put it in the fridge. i had no idea until i asked who made those. and she said “me.”
Howard continued “she said, ‘it's so good you can sell it.’ and light bulbs went off.”
Which is how the furlough cheesecake came to be.
At first they started by simply selling them online but it quickly snowballed from there right into area Walmart stores.
Jaqi Wright of the furlough cheesecake: “i had no idea that that one cheesecake would change everything.” and now – they’re going a step further.
At National Harbor near Washington, D.C. they just opened their first physical storefront.
As Wright shared “so we started our business during a furlough and we opened a store during a pandemic. it makes us sound crazy, honestly, but it just happened this way,” but they are fortunate.
The pandemic is hitting many small businesses hard and black-owned businesses especially so.
Between February and April, the number of African-American owned businesses dropped by 41% and economists estimate half of all African-American owned businesses may never reopen from their covid closures.
At the furlough cheesecake, Jaqi Wright said that “we just took a leap of faith.”
They know timing is everything when facing two – separate – tough economic times.
Nikki Howard explained: “there's so many people out there struggling and suffering and being a minority-owned business, you know, we feel a responsibility to shed a good light on our community.”
Just one part of their unusual recipe for success.
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