This midtown incubator helps Sacramento entrepreneurs start their small businesses

Dana Willis is passionate about herbal wellness and wants to share her knowledge of natural products and holistic healing with her community through her business: Sacred Products.

Since she was 16-years-old, Willis has embodied the entrepreneurial spirit and continued to develop her business. She participated in pop-up events in Sacramento for a couple of years before being made aware of the opportunity in Sacramento’s midtown district.

The CLTRE Club, located at 1409 16th St., provides an opportunity for local entrepreneurs to experience having a brick-and-mortar location for their business and allows their products, goods, or services to become easily accessible to the public. CLTRE is an acronym with two meanings: “Community led transformative real estate” and “Creating leverage to ready entrepreneurs.”

Willis, 21, has only been a part of the CLTRE Club for two months but she’s been able to expand her business and introduce herself to people she’s never met.

In addition to holding space for small businesses, the pilot program is also a co-working space and the site for various community events.

“We have this pilot program we wanted to run because of the need that we see for entrepreneurs that are on this brick-and-mortar journey,” said CLTRE Club co-owner, Roshaun Davis. “CLTRE comes in with mentors, partners to really fill those gaps for them over a six-month period.”

He said it’s fairly new and will last until the end of the year. Davis hopes to continue this effort beyond 2023.

“The mission is just to shift the cultural landscape in Sacramento by the year 2040,” Davis said. “We say ‘without you, there is no culture.’’’

CLTRE Club held its soft opening in May 2023, and a grand opening event in June.

It’s created by the partnership between CLTRE, a sister nonprofit organization to Davis’s Unseen Heroes, and Capitol Area Development Authority, a public agency aimed at enhancing the environment in Sacramento.

Most costs are covered by CADA. Businesses donate 5% of their sales to CLTRE and pay $125 to cover utilities. There are currently nine small businesses that operate out of CLTRE Club: Black Coffee Roastery, Cleo Cartel, La Pop Shop, Lingers, Pila Kava, Pony, the Savage Hand, Thriftstorefly and Sacred Products.

Currently, they are at the maximum capacity and are not accepting new businesses.

The public is welcome to use the outdoor patio Wi-Fi to work remotely during store business hours, noon to 8 p.m. daily,or as an al fresco dining experience. There will be food trucks on site every second Saturday of the month.

From pop-up to brick-and-mortar

Many of the CLTRE entrepreneurs are in the infancy of owning their own small business.

Mersadez Hogan, a born and raised Sacramento resident, has aspirations of stepping into entrepreneurship by owning her own thrift store. CLTRE Club made that aspiration a reality when they allowed Hogan to bring her business, Thriftstorefly, to the midtown community space.

Hogan’s business idea started as a thrifting hobby in 2017 when she hosted her event at Robertson Community Center in Del Paso Heights.

She would pride herself in searching for the most trending threads at an affordable price. She posted her new finds on social media and soon developed a following of people who were impressed that she could be so stylish from head-to-toe without burning a hole in her pockets.

She received multiple compliments on her wardrobe whenever she stepped out of the house. People eventually reached out to Hogan for help on how to stylize their wardrobe at a low cost.

Hogan morphed this opportunity into different events such as closet clean outs or community pop-ups where she would collect donations, sometimes from her own closet, to resell into the community.

“I wanted to create a central place or a platform for people to brag about their Goodwill finds and things that they find on clearance,” Hogan said. “Basically just a community of people who like to look fly, but without breaking the bank.”

This was the beginning of her business idea, Thriftstorefly, a pop-up thrift store.

She wanted to leave her footprint in a sustainable fashion.

Hogan’s store separates from other outlets because she specializes in having plus size clothes available for purchase.

Motivated by the support of her community to open a brick-and-mortar location, Hogan was introduced to the CLTRE Club by a neighbor and friend.

She said it was the perfect opportunity for her to work with others and learn the business aspect.

“It was like the missing component to give me the extra push to dream big that it could be possible for Thriftstorefly to be its own brick and mortar plus size thrift store, which is an element that I know Sacramento is missing — to have just an exclusively sustainable fashion thrift store for sizes large and up,” Hogan said.

When Hogan held her soft opening in CLTRE Club on July 27, she was overwhelmed with the amount of support she received from the community.

Her plan is to have an official grand opening on Sept. 9.

Although Thriftstorefly carries sizes for all shapes, it emphasizes plus size garments. Many shoppers were ecstatic at all of the different options available for extended sizes.

“Sacramento really showed up and showed out,” Hogan said. “The amount of people who just pulled up and were so happy that I’m here. The amount of strangers, people that I never met, that stopped by and thanked me for carrying extended sizes. Like that’s what really touched me, being able to offer extended sizes for a demographic of people that it’s a little bit harder to find clothes for.”

Preparation through mentorship

Hogan isn’t the only one seeing their business become a brick-and-mortar shop for the first time. Dante Williams has been on a mission to share his coffee — Black Coffee Roastery — with the world.

Williams is a genuine lover of coffee.

Like many, he’s had his occasional trips to Starbucks or Peet’s Coffee.

Things changed though when a friend introduced him to Temple Coffee Roasters in Sacramento. They were known for their specialty coffee.

Once Williams had it, he could never go back to regular coffee.

Williams took a chance on himself after suffering from burnout working in nonprofit management for 8 years. He decided to go back to law school.

In the spring of 2020, Williams was informed that his classes would be moved to online due to COVID-19 forcing people to work or learn remotely from home.

With extra downtime, Williams found out that he could roast his own coffee beans. He did his research and ended up buying a $10 hot air popcorn machine on OfferUp.

He was so enamored with the taste that never looked back to spending his money on coffee. He wanted to make it himself each time.

It turned out that he would turn a profit by selling bags of coffee beans to classmates.

He created a logo and worked on a name.

Williams posted his product on Facebook, just to see the traction it would create. He ended up having a waitlist of 30 people anxious to taste his coffee.

“I was at that point, I’m like, ‘Oh snap, we might have something here,’” Williams said. “I went and got my business license, my permit to be able to roast and started from there.”

He said it was only supposed to be a side-gig while he was in school, but the more bags he sold the more satisfaction he felt.

He had his online business and he was making appearances at different farmer’s markets on the weekends.

“I found myself working harder than I was ever working before, but enjoying (this) more than I’ve ever worked,” Williams said. “I’ve always heard people talk about how their work is their passion and it doesn’t feel like work because they love it.”

Black Coffee Roastery is pretty visible throughout Sacramento as Williams has supplied coffee bags for the governor’s mansion, Hyatt Regency and Sacramento Co-Op Natural Foods grocery store, in addition to its appearance at the Midtown Farmers Market every Saturday.

It’s the first time in William’s life where he actually loves what he is doing, and it doesn’t feel like work. In certain areas and aspects, he feels fulfillment in what he’s doing.

Williams said CLTRE Club is a “unique opportunity” that has allowed him to gain an understanding of owning a business, behind the scenes of just selling coffee.

“I’ve already learned a lot with the permit process, electrical plumbing, all these different components that you have to consider when you’re in a brick and mortar space. That will prepare us for when we do get that long term space,” said Williams.

He desires to do everything at a high level, so fittingly his next step is to venture out and open a shop of his own.

“We’re really just getting started,” Williams said. “(We’re) excited about once we are fully permitted to be able to get people in the door, get our name out there and get the experience we need to do this at a more permanent location.”

This story was originally published August 9, 2023 at 5:00 AM.