Black Owned Businesses Tour of Downtown Macon

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT)– Newtown Macon and several downtown businesses partner to bring a Black-Owned Businesses Tour to residents.

Emily Hopkins, the Director of Place at Newtown Macon says downtown has grown rapidly and become more diverse overtime.

“I think we’ve had 6 or 7 new black-owned businesses open this year,” Hopkins stated. “They all opened in the middle of a pandemic, which is really amazing and also shows some grit.”

Wayne Woodard, the owner of Ambitious Graphics, came up with the idea for the tour and says he wants to use it to motivate other entrepreneurs and shoppers as well.

“I’ve been down here for eight years and I had no idea there were 65 black-owned businesses,” Woodard explained. “Hopefully this will shed some light on those businesses and encourage people to come down here and just shop with those businesses and all other businesses downtown.”

The tour features, one of the newest businesses in town, The Kaviar Beauty Bar. The owners, Andria Sands and Leigha Axom hope young people on the tour see their accomplishments and feel inspired.

“It’s not impossible,” Sands said. “Don’t try to wait until you get into the financial state that you feel like you need to be in if that’s even the situation. Just take what you have and just go for it,” Axom added.

The business tour will start at 2 p.m. Saturday, December 12 at Ambitious Graphics, and end at 5 p.m. A discussion panel will also take place at Crave Scratch Kitchen starting at 5:30 p.m.