Boulder County offers lots of places to choose from. Whether you’re eating at restaurants, dining at a bar, or buying tires for your car, there’s a business around every corner. But before you shop just anywhere, consider shopping with purpose. By supporting Black entrepreneurs in our community, you support and fund businesses that authentically honor and respect Black culture, rather than attempt to profit off it.
You can do this by soliciting one of the Black-owned businesses in Boulder or the surrounding areas, including the following:
Mateo
Mateo has been a staple of Pearl Street for more than 20 years. It supports local farmers and ranchers, offering French cuisine in a casual setting. Grab lunch or dinner and feast on everything from burgers and fries to duck confit and lamb bolognese, or stop in for a weekend brunch. You can dine indoors (with COVID-friendly spacing), dine outdoors, or grab takeout.
Brooklyn Barber Academy
Brooklyn Barber Academy is the vision of Ja’Mal Gilmore, a man who grew up in Brooklyn and spent his youth in local barbershops. He opened his own in 2016, determined to provide the same sense of community and guidance he once received.
Brooklyn Barber Academy, voted the Best Barbershop in Boulder for 2021 by Yellow Scene Magazine, is a full-service barbershop and salon for men, women, and kids ). It also doubles as an academy that offers informal and formal educational opportunities for professional stylists (or those aspiring to become one).
Raglin Market
Raglin Market is located in Gunbarrel and easily accessible from downtown Boulder, Longmont, Lafayette, and Louisville. Billed as a fresh-casual restaurant, it offers chef-made sandwiches, salad, soups, desserts, and more. It also serves a variety of libations and pays considerable attention to the art of wine-making. Raglin is the perfect after-work stop; cheers to the end of a successful day.
Maker General
Maker General was founded to make space for creative spaces. The owners envisioned a “general store” for makers, those tooling with textiles, fiddling with fibers, and embarking on other artistic endeavors. Maker General sells sewing supplies, embroidery kits, bags, facemasks, t-shirts, cards, and novelty items. It also holds monthly workshops for kids and adults who want to learn more about sewing or woodworking.
Ras Kassa
Ras Kassa is a highly-rated Ethiopian restaurant on Public Road in Lafayette (which acts as the city’s Mainstreet). It’s open for dine-in or takeout from Tuesday-Sunday, 3pm-9pm. Tsehay Hailu, the owner, has been serving dishes made from family recipes for over 30 years.
Ras Kassa offers both meat and vegetarian options and has an extensive menu that features goat cheese, Rocky Mountain red trout, lamb stew, hummus, chicken skewers, sauteed mushrooms, spicy red lentils, turmeric sauce, and more.
There are creative and delicious opportunities to buy from and dine at Black-owned businesses in Boulder County. So, go out and lend your support this February and throughout the rest of the year.