Allan Appel photo
Co-owner Michael Massey with a young customer.
The Black Corner Store on Edgewood Avenue isn’t closing. For now. But it is up for sale, as Kenia and Michael Massey try to find a way to keep their neighborhood storefront afloat as both a for-profit business and a nonprofit hub for classes in financial literacy and other community resources.
That’s the latest with the shop/nonprofit that the Masseys have run at 277 Edgewood Ave. since 2021.
Facing the increasing financial burden of rent and electricity and other costs associated with running their neighborhood business, the Masseys had considered shuttering The Black Corner Store entirely earlier this month.
An outpouring of community support and a renewed recognition of the importance of continuing to do what they do in the Dwight neighborhood has led them to take a new approach: try to sell the for-profit part of their business, so that they can keep running their nonprofit in the same spot.
This recent re-evaluation of The Black Corner Store’s future came after the Masseys were not successful in the third round of their application for a major grant from the state’s Community Investment Fund.
Success would have enabled them finally to buy the building, at Platt Street on Edgewood, right by the Troup School. As a nonprofit landlord, had they been successful, they then had hoped build apartments above and then renovate and rent some of the substantial street-level and basement commercial space below to local businesses or nonprofits.
That had been the thrust of the unsuccessful $2.8 million application. In this manner the Masseys would liberate themselves from being overwhelmed by the sky-high rent and upkeep which make it so hard especially for small, minority-owned businesses to succeed in New Haven.
The good news is that they are not giving up.
“Our biggest focus is the big impact we’ve made on the community,” Kenia Massey said around 3:00 p.m. Thursday as the door to the cozy, warm store, with welcoming red banquettes, kept opening and closing.
Kenia Massey with son and future entrepreneur Mikhae.
As kids dashed in to buy lemonade, chips, Twinkies, and Swiss Rolls, the Masseys greeted them on a first name-basis and queried about, for example, how their parents were doing, or if they were coming from school.
No entry or exit was done silently. No purchase made without some conversation. However brief the friendly hellos, meaningful transactions were taking place. The Masseys, in other words, seemed to be giving a truer, richer meaning to being the mom-and-pop of the Black Corner Store.
With the store providing free food if local families were in need, clothing give-aways, help to local residents furnishing their apartments, financial literacy classes to inspire entrepreneurship, after-school homework activities, and a Christmas tree in the store each year and holiday gifts for all the neighborhood kids, it’s no surprise that after a few years “the kids look at us like the mom-and-pop of the neighborhood,” Kenia said.
“We’ve got their trust. This community counts on us. I don’t like to give that up.”
Yet, with the recent denial of the grant and a killing monthly upkeep ($4,000 for rent; $1,500 for electricity; $450 – 500 for gas; $250 for insurance, and more) “there comes a time when you have to think of your own family,” she said.
They gave themselves two months to think about next steps and had decided a month ago to close the store and say farewell.
Yet when they put that word out, there was so much support from the community, and, as Michael put it, “You can’t turn your back on these kids,” so the entrepreneurial Masseys have changed their minds and now have a Plan B.
They’ve put the business up for sale on Facebook’s Marketplace.
The idea is to sell the business to someone with deep enough pockets to fill the shelves, and keep the inventory and thus keep the current, loyal customers and make the business thrive.
(Sample shelf from this reporter's local Walgreen's) . . . a full inventory makes a profitable store, say the Masseys.
“Then we would deal only with the nonprofit side,” Kenia said as she pointed to an ample corner of the corner store where the activities and classes would be centered.
Could the business succeed? She has no doubt.
Customer traffic, even on relatively quiet Edgewood, is not a problem, she reported. Thanks to their programs and planned activities, having an Amazon locker in the store to attract a more diverse clientele, and other entrepreneurial marketing moves the couple has made.
But coming up with $100,000 for inventory? The Masseys simply don’t have it, and when shelves are empty-ish, as they are now because the couple is, to use their phrase, pinching pennies, customers, even devoted loyal ones, soon fall away.
However, if a silent partner could invest that much, the Masseys are convinced the place could indeed thrive, whereas now there is no profit in the business – and Kenia works full-time managing the staff of a warehouse in Milford.
And with the monthly pressure off, Kenia said they could find the time to refine their vision for the Black Corner Store and apply for an upcoming round of the Community Investment Fund – a simpler ask for purchase of the building alone for non-profit purposes and not the full-scale renovation that had been part of the previous application.
What has given hope is that as soon as she placed the business on Facebook’s Marketplace, there has been a blizzard of interest.
They’re interviewing people – many potential investors are from out of town – but there are also some who are local, including some who are African American.
“The partnership can’t be with just anyone,” Kenia said. “They need to understand our vision, but they have to be able to care for the business.”
Right now their top candidate is a local African American guy whom Kenia described as having “a passion for this place, someone who’s not going to push people away.”
That had been the case, she recalled, with the three or four previous owners of the business. So that, in addition to service to the community, all the backyard barbecues and picnics and clothing sales and even the classes the Masseys have coordinated over recent years, along with their brotherly and sisterly (and, with kids, parental) style of store-keeping have had the additional impact of bringing customers back. The challenge, she said, is keeping the shelves full, and then people and profits will come.
A life-long writer, Michael Massey recently published his first novel, available on Amazon.
Michael Massey, who grew up around this particular corner store, is particularly passionate about maintaining Black ownership, both because that’s best for the neighborhood and is a model for fostering future generations of young Black entrepreneurs. There were dozens of corner stores in New Haven when he was a little kid, the size of the many he is now serving, he recalled, and none owned by an African American.
Their silent partner will need to get all this, along with the importance of demonstrating Black-owned entrepreneurship — what Kenia calls “our vision.”
A person of planning, Kenia said that interviewing of buyer-candidates is in progress and they will decide on Dec. 26. Yes, the day after Christmas, a “present to ourselves, new beginnings.”
This year, as in years past, she said, there will be a tree in the store for kids to enjoy — many from homes struggling, or homeless, who may not have one of their own. There will be cookies too, but this year, alas, no individual presents; this year they can’t afford them.
Anyone interested in more details about the store, its nonprofit entity, Black Corner Store Investments, can go to Facebook’s Marketplace and look for Black Corner LLC.