Woman-led Stories
Olathe restaurateur brings comfort food home from the Mediterranean (starting with falafel bowls)
Summer Salem looked around her city for an authentic Mediterranean restaurant and found a gap in the Olathe marketplace. So a year ago she began planning one of her own. She teamed with her husband, Abraham, who also is a partner in a downtown Kansas City Mediterranean restaurant. But the recipes would be Summer’s own….
How this founder’s hobby (plus a little trouble) became Oak Park retail incubator’s biggest success story
“Big Chunky Blankets” — soft as a baby’s cheek and custom knitted in any color of the rainbow — folded into the foundation of what would become Maryann Nzioki Hult’s resilient, nearly pandemic-proof foray into entrepreneurship. They put local Tabu Knits on the online map of must-have-items, and then became the seed of two Johnson…
Founder Problems: Podcast captures the ‘messy middle’ you don’t see on entrepreneurs’ highlight reels
A new Kansas City-based podcast is skipping over the fairy tale stories of founding a startup; instead diving straight into the messy parts, the hosts shared. Founder Problems — hosted by local entrepreneurs Sarah Schumacher, Zach Oshinbanjo, and Lee Zuvanich — is embracing the aspects of starting and running a business that no one wants…
‘Invest with women we know’: This $1.4M wellness hub project is redeveloping one neighborhood from within
It’s an old real estate adage: “Buy the worst house in the best neighborhood.” Longtime Kansas City commercial broker Sheryl Vickers said it also applies to business properties, “one thousand percent.” Like twin mid-century office buildings just over the Missouri/Kansas state line in Prairie Village. “I drove by it, what a sad state,” said Vickers,…
Street art to stage: KC fashion designer styles iconic Jim Crow-era musical comedy without missing a beat
Designing for theater gives Whitney Manney the opportunity to be as big and loud as she wants, the street bespoke creator said. A new musical production of “Hairspray” puts Manney’s bold aesthetic through a new lens — and alongside a timely story of acceptance, diversity, and the power of music. “There is no such thing…
