Three and a half years ago, Laura Clise found herself feeling extremely frustrated.
It was February, and Clise and her wife wanted to commemorate Black History Month by going out for meals at Black-owned restaurants. A socially-conscious consumer, she was dismayed over how difficult it was to find any resources with accurate information.
She began putting together a list of Seattle’s Black-owned restaurants that would one day become Intentionalist, a website that provides consumers with comprehensive lists of small businesses locally owned by people from marginalized communities.
“I knew that there were a growing number of consumers who care, and small businesses who need our support, so why was it so hard to find them?