Pastry shop owner hopes to inspire young Black entrepreneurs – KIRO 7 News Seattle

SEATTLE – A young pastry chef from Seattle just started her own business and hopes to inspire other entrepreneurs.

Hana Yohannes, owner of Shikorina Pastries, told Tracey Leong at KIRO 7 that it took the support of family, friends and strangers to make this possible.

“I think it’s important to have community-owned companies near you that represent you,” said Yohannes.

The name Shikorina is a nod to her Eritrean heritage – it means “sweetness” in her family’s mother tongue, Tigrinya.

“As I am in the Central District, an area that used to be predominantly black, it is very important and very special for me to be in this area as a black company, and it is important to have space for other blacks To create entrepreneurs. ”Said Yohannes.

She has been passionate about baking since childhood, but never thought that she could do it for a living.

In 2019, Yohannes decided to take the plunge. Shortly after dropping out of Stanford University, she enrolled in The Pastry Project, a common room in Pioneer Square that offers free pastry and baking training to help make the industry more accessible.

Yohannes completed the Pastry Project in 2020, but plans to open her own store have been put on hold due to the pandemic and the challenges she faced in finding investors.

“As the child of two immigrants with no experience starting their own business, I didn’t know where to start when I started my own business,” she said. “I think a lot of that was access to capital, which is so difficult for blacks, especially a black company, which I’ve seen firsthand. When I started my own business and was a black woman, it was really difficult to get hold of capital, which is why starting my GoFundMe was so important to me. because the big institutes weren’t ready to give me the loans I needed. “

Yohannes opened her shop in June 2021. She shares an Eritrean tradition of roasting coffee beans that is part of her culture’s coffee ceremony, as well as personalized recipes using unique combinations of local ingredients.

Connecting people through their sweet creations is something that Yohannes really enjoys.

“I definitely feel very warm inside when I know that people are enjoying my pastries. I really try to be responsive to the people I work with, ”she said.

Yohannes hopes her story inspires other entrepreneurs to pursue their passions and understand that anything is achievable when you do the job.

“No matter what obstacles you have in your way, you can overcome them,” she said.

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