by Daniel Johnson
August 31, 2025
Angel Gregorio, proprietor of The Spice Suite, conceived the open-air market after shopping for the property that grew to become Black and Forth.
As stories flow into about Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Trump-friendly response to the federal authorities’s presence within the metropolis, a close-by strip mall continues to function a hub for Black companies and residents.
Based on D.C. Information Now, a farmer’s market blooms on the second and fourth Sunday of every month on the metropolis’s Black and Forth strip mall, serving as a number to distributors, Mid-Atlantic farmers, and meals artisans.
Angel Gregorio, who additionally owns The Spice Suite, advised the outlet that she got here up with the thought for the open-air market after her expertise shopping for the industrial property that she was Black and Forth.
“I observed the dearth of illustration of Black farmers on the markets regionally, so I made a decision to create a free area for Black farmers to point out up and promote their produce, spend money on their group and sort of have a bi-weekly block get together,” Gregorio stated.
She continued, “It’s so many issues that we do effectively and that we do for the group. So many issues that we do is free that it’s additionally tough for the group to not present up for us as a result of we’re pouring a lot into the group.”
As BLACK ENTERPRISE beforehand reported, Gregorio bought a 7,500-square-foot lot in 2023, which she christened Black and Forth, and homes her aforementioned enterprise in addition to a number of different outlets.
The identify, as Gregorio advised Dcist, is derived from her personal time period for coping with numerous Black-owned companies within the metropolis.
“It was simply this catchy, cool identify that I created for a way I describe my technique of going back-and-forth with Black enterprise house owners,” Gregorio advised the outlet. “And now it’s the identify of a shopping mall—a strip mall —that I personal in D.C. So I be ok with that and I’m grateful to be within the area.”
She continued, “We have now lots of dialog about inexpensive housing, however we don’t discuss sufficient about making industrial area inexpensive for Black girls. And so since nobody is speaking about it, I’m simply going to do it and let individuals speak about it.”
Her buy of the lot, which was facilitated not less than partially by a program instituted by Mayor Bowser which was geared toward rising the quantity of Black girls enterprise house owners within the metropolis, took place following stories from a number of Black farmers that in 2020, one among Washington D.C.’s largest farmers markets and its dad or mum firm, Freshfarm denied Black farmers and meals artisans spots at Dupont Circle, its most worthwhile farmer’s market.
As an alternative of resigning to coping with the microaggressions of Freshfarm, a 12 months after this scandal rocked the town’s Black farm-to-table group, Gregorio reportedly grew to become the preliminary recipient of a $750,000 grant from D.C.’s Industrial Property Acquisition Fund, the brainchild of Metropolis Councilman Kenyan McDuffie.
Based on McDuffie, that grant was meant to be the primary constructing block for fairness and inclusion within the metropolis’s monetary system because it pertains to Black entrepreneurs.
“We’re going to maintain making these kinds of investments, so we are able to do the kinds of transformational issues that enable our Black and brown entrepreneurs not solely to be nice enterprise individuals [but] to construct wealth that they will move on for generations to come back,” he stated on the ribbon reducing for Gregorio’s strip mall in 2023.
Gregorio agreed, noting on the ceremony that she wished Black and Forth to function a mannequin for what is feasible in D.C.
“The purpose of this area is to construct group. I need this to change into the mannequin. I need to have the ability to seek the advice of without spending a dime and discuss to different individuals on how to do that in your metropolis, in your quadrant, so this turns into the usual of how we look after one another and the way we present up for group.”
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