Oakland’s Black Arts Movement Business District will soon be the home of the city’s newest cultural destination for wine lovers, CoCo Noir Wine Shop & Bar.
Co-founded by Bay Area natives Alicia Kidd and Mari Kemp, the wine shop is slated to open during the first quarter of 2021 and will focus on BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) as well as women-owned brands made around the country as well as globally that can be paired with a curated menu of small bites.
“We founded CoCo Noir to be a disruptor in the wine industry by offering a platform and a space for winemakers of color and women producing amazing wines and also expose those wines to an amazing demographic of people,” says Kidd, who is also a distributor, launching her company The Wine Noire in 2017. Together with Kemp, the entrepreneurs are looking to influence the wine culture that has been steadily rising in Oakland’s nationally recognized culinary scene.
Located at 13th and Webster, Kidd and Kemp are designing CoCo Noir to be a place where wine lovers of all levels can enjoy a glass and purchase their favorite bottles while being immersed in a vibrant community culture. “Part of being able to create Coco Noir is to have a place where people can feel comfortable to be themselves, to be human, while also enjoying the fruits of the community, of local arts as well as global libations of different wines that we will be offering,” says Kemp. The San Francisco native has built a successful career in tech as well as real estate investment.
Source: Founders of Black-Owned Wine Shop in Downtown Oakland Raise $60K in Funding
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