COLUMBUS, Ohio — There is an initiative to get minority owned and women owned business retail space in downtown Columbus.

“it’s cool to find programs that are willing to specifically support our demographic,” said the owner of Three Bites Bakery, Isabella Bonello.

 Located at the intersection of High and Broad are two minority-owned businesses who are taking up space on the ground floor. Three Bites Bakery and Black Kahawa Coffee are the first businesses to receive support from the Ground Floor Growth Initiative. It’s a program that supports minority-owned and women-owned businesses 

 “It’s been huge in us being able to even build this space out, to just have the funds to do something cool like this and move downtown and give us really the opportunity as a business like grow and expand,” said Bonello.

 Isabella Bonello is the owner of Three Bites Bakery. She started baking out of her apartment in 2019 before she moved to her first brick-and-mortar location in the Bronzeville area in 2022. But since their grand opening in their downtown location just last week, she says business is booming. 

 “I would have to say, compared to our old space, I mean, we see higher business than we ever could have imagined in our original location,” said Bonello.

Similar to Bonello’s experience, Douglas Buckley, the owner of Black Kahawa Coffee, also began his coffee shop in a trailer at his residence before expanding to a physical store downtown, courtesy of the ground floor growth program. 

“I love how the city is bringing together business professionals who are providing support to entrepreneurs and also bringing diverse businesses to downtown and kind of allowing them to be part of the revitalization of downtown,” said Buckley.

The program helps with rent support for the first three years of their lease. They also receive tenant renovation funding and technical assistance. As a Columbus native, Buckley says this specific location holds a lot of significance for him and his company.