Forge News and Updates |
It’s March. Can you believe that we’re already 3 months into 2021? I cannot. One thing I’ve always loved about March is that it means warmer weather is coming. However, I a few years ago I discovered that March is also Women’s History Month. No more winter, warm weather, and Women’s History Month all in one – I don’t think it gets better than that!
Women’s History Month is dedicated to highlighting and celebrating women’s contributions to history and society. In honor of all of the fabulous women who have come before us, and who will come after us, we wanted to take a moment to highlight some of these awesome women in Birmingham.
Here is a list of 13 Female Owned Restaurants in Birmingham that You Must Visit
(in no particular order)
Ashley Mac’s
Various locations in Homewood, Cahaba Heights, Downtown, Hoover
Ashley McMakin, Founder of Ashley Macs. Photo from Style Blueprint
Ashley Mac’s offers café dining, catering, and to-go options. They have a wide variety of delicious options for everyone. Their frozen to-go meals are perfect for a busy family who wants to eat healthy. Ashely Mac’s baby blue salad and poppyseed chicken are a personal favorite.
photo from Ashley Macs Instagram
Blueroot
2822A Petticoat Ln
Mountain Brook, AL 35223
Jennifer Ryan, Owner of Blueroot. Photo from Village Living
Located in the heart of Mountain Brook Village, Blue Root offers delicious and healthy meals from oats, granola, breakfast, salads, bowls, soups, and sides. Their meals are loaded with a number of flavorful ingredients. They are allergy conscious, making this the perfect healthy place for those with any dairy, gluten, or vegan intolerances. After dining in or grabbing to-go, make sure to check out their sweet treats or desserts.
photo from the Blueroot Instagram
The Essential
2018 Morris Ave
Birmingham, AL 35203
Kristen Farmer Hall, Co-Owner of The Essential. Photo from Style Blueprint
The Essential should be your new go-to restaurant. It offers a wonderful menu filled with lunch and dinner options that will leave you full and satisfied. The menu has something for everyone, whether you’re craving a salad, sandwich, pasta, or burger – they have it all In addition, they offer a wide variety of cocktails to add to your meal. On the weekend, they offer a delicious brunch consisting of all your favorites, but even better.
photo from The Essential Instagram
Chocolatá
1927 2nd Avenue North
Birmingham, Alabama 35203
Kathy D’Agostino, Owner of Chocolata. Photo from Style Blueprint
If you love chocolate, this will quickly become your new favorite place. Chocolates are especially blended for their unique flavor pairing, using carefully handcrafted recipes. Head on over to Chocolatá for some of the best Chocolate you’ve ever had – you won’t regret it.
photo from Chocolata Instagram
Daughter’s Baking
(PICKUP BY APPOINTMENT)
195 Vulcan Road
Homewood, AL 35209
Mallory Webb, Founder of Daughters Baking. Photo from Style Blueprint
While they do not have a storefront, yet Daughter’s Baking should still be at the top of your dessert list. Daughter’s is known for their beautiful, flavorful naked cakes. They also offer cookies, crumbs, and crunches. If you have any type of celebration coming up, or if you just want to treat yourself to a delicious cake, go ahead and place an order with Daughter’s Baking.
photo from Daughters Baking Instagram
Urban Cookhouse and Farm Bowl & Juice Co
1920 29th Avenue South
Birmingham, AL 35209
Andrea Snyder, Founder of Urban Cookhouse & Farm Bowl & Juice Co
While very different establishments, these two are owned by the same woman. Urban Cookhouse offers customers with delicious lunch and dinner meals. You cannot go wrong with anything on their menu, and their warm orange rolls are mouthwatering delicious. Farm Bowl is an acai place, located next to the Homewood Urban Cookhouse Location. Farm Bowl partners with local farmers in Alabama to bring fresh, locally sourced ingredients to their bowls, smoothies, and juices. You cannot go wrong with either one of these places for an afternoon lunch.
photo from Farm Bowl + Juice Co Instagram
Bitty’s Living Kitchen
Kimberly McNair Brock, Owner & Chef of Bitty’s Living Kitchen
Bitty’s Living Kitchen is the perfect place for healthy and delicious. They offer a variety of juices for your next juice cleanse or fast. It does not get much better than Bitty’s Fresh Pressed Juices to start your day.
photo from Bitty’s Living Kitchen Instagram
Magic City Nutrition
2201 2nd Ave S, suite 104
Birmingham, AL 35233
Faith & Britni, Owners of Magic City Nutrition
Magic City Nutrition is the place to go for a healthy drink. They offer a wide variety of teas and shakes for all your needs. Their shakes are only 200 calories and are full of proteins. You can order ahead, so your drink will be ready by the time you get there. If you love tea or a good shake, but don’t want the calories that come with them, Magic City Nutrition is the place for you.
photo from Magic City Nutrition Instagram
Highlands Bar and Grill
2011 Eleventh Avenue South
Birmingham, AL 35205
Pardis Stitt, Co-Owner of Highlands Bar & Grill
Highland’s Bar and Grill, while temporarily closed because of COVID, is a place you must go before leaving Birmingham. Highland Br and Grill’s cuisine is rooted in French technique and provides customers with a daily changing menu. Highlands is one of the top restaurants in Birmingham, and it has received national recognition. It was named a finalist in the James Beard Foundation Award for Most Outstanding Restaurant in America 9 years straight, before winning it in its 10th nomination year. If that alone is not enough to persuade you, their pastry chef also won Most Outstanding Pastry Chef.
photo from Highlands Bar & Grill Instagram
Satterfield’s Restaurant
3161 Cahaba Heights Road
Birmingham, AL 35243
Becky Satterfield, Owner of Satterfield’s. Photo from Satterfield website
Located in the heart of Cahaba Heights, Satterfield’s is one of Birmingham’s finest culinary destinations. Satterfield’s offers customers a relaxed fine dining experience. They pride themselves on their fresh ingredients, and while their menu changes daily, customers can expect a wonderful blend of cuisines in every bite.
photo from Satterfields Instagram
Crestline Bagel Company
Locations in Mountain Brook’s Crestline Village, Cahaba Heights, and Downtown
Jennifer Yarbrough, Co-owner of Crestline Bagel. Photo from Style Blueprint
Crestline Bagel Company has been serving the community of Birmingham for over 20 years. Crestline is the perfect spot for pre-work breakfast. They offer an array of different bagels, made daily. As a sucker for Bacon, Egg, & Cheese bagels, I can say this is an easy favorite place. Crestline’s menu extends past bagels as they offer wraps, sandwiches, salads, panini, or pizza bagels. You can’t go wrong ordering from here.
photo from Crestline Bagel Instagram
Naughty But Nice Kettle Corn
5831 1st Ave. North Suite 200
Birmingham, AL 35212
Tanesha Sims-Summers, Founder & CEO of NBN Kettle Corn
I don’t know about you but popcorn is one of my greatest weaknesses. I’m a huge movie lover, and a movie complete without a bowl of popcorn in hand. In recent years I’ve grown to appreciate kettle corn more than the butter covered popcorn at movie theaters. Naught but Nice Kettle Corn satisfies every popcorn craving you can imagine. 10/10 would recommend their salty & sweet kettle corn. However, if you’re feeling a bit more adventurous try their green apple pie or strawberry flavors. Either way, I can promise you that you will not regretting stopping by.
photo from Costarters
Automatic Seafood & Oysters
2824 5th Avenue South
Birmingham, AL 35233
Suzanne Humphries Evans, Co-Founder of Automatic Seafood. Photo from Bham Now
Here’s another James Beard nominated restaurant – a 2020 finalist for best new restaurant in the U.S. While relatively new to Birmingham, Automatic Seafood has amassed quite the reputation for its flavorful food, ambiance, and service. If you’re a seafood fan, this should be the first place you visit. I highly recommend their fish collar appetizer. It’s arguably my favorite thing I’ve eaten…ever. They are booked most of the time, so schedule ahead of time and reserve online. Automatic Seafood & Oysters reputation precedes them, and I cannot recommend this one enough.
Photo from the Automatic Instagram
Forge celebrated International Women’s Day on March 8 with a virtual panel of 3 local female business leaders- you can view the recording of that event on our YouTube channel! If you’ve been working from home and find yourself struggling to be productive, consider coming in for a free day at Forge. With unlimited coffee and super fast wifi, you can be the most productive version of yourself in our workspace! Schedule a tour of Forge today.
Lunch & Learn |
Do you dread networking? Even though we know that networking may not be at the top of your priority list, everyone knowns networking ultimately helps you grow your business. Jenna Curry recently taught a Forge webinar about the power of networking! Jenna is the owner of Remedy Digital Agency and we are recapping the highlights from her teaching. You can watch the full recording here.
Jenna Curry, Owner of Remedy Digital Agency
How can networking get you…
friendships
clients
referral
partners
board members
donors
employees
free advice
free stuff
In order to network effectively, you want to bring your best energy to each opportunity.
For networking to work, you must connect! Here’s how:
- Have a “give first” mindset- see how much of an impact you can make on others
- The only self-serving goal should be to find at least 1 thing you can learn from someone to apply to your business/life
- Know your value and determine what value you bring to each situation
- Know the problem your business solves for your customer and your customer’s customer
- Care about the people you network with
- Exercise that energy/value
- Focus on getting to the next step on the ladder instead of sealing the deal
Networking with Mixtroz at our IWD 2020 event
Getting Started with Intentional Networking:
1. Make a list of your next 10 dream clients
2. Write out what time, knowledge, gift or access can you provide to your ‘Future Dream 10’ Clients?
3. Write out who, what, where, and when for each person you want to impact
4. Start making contact and keeping track (using a CRM or Google sheet) of who, what, where, and when for each.
5. Iterate and repeat
6. Grow your contacts and grow your business!
Jenna told us to ask ourselves, how can you leverage your energy?
- Emotions: send encouraging messages, pay attention, give feedback
- Time: volunteer and show up!
- Knowledge: offer a free training, a guide, “how to”
- Monetary: gift or offer
- Access: to a connection, space, to information, to a following, a community, an event
Connect- Virtual Networking Meeting
What time, knowledge, gift or access can you provide to your ‘Future Dream 10’ Clients?
Who can you thank today? Take time to send a text or write a personalized thank you card!
Here are some things that Jenna has personally done to grow her own network:
- start a networking group
- share wins for myself and others on social media
- host a ladies night
- host a training
- volunteer for events (show up early, stay late)
- join a business book club
- treat friends to golf
- write an article
- host/attend a fundraising table lunch
- write a review
- send a thoughtful gift
- invite someone to a Zoom lunch where she had lunch delivered
- refer business
- and much more!
Don’t forget to thank people profusely!
Forge recently launched Connect– a weekly virtual networking meeting. We wanted to create a way that you can conveniently make new connections to ultimately grow your business! Connect is open to the public and meetings are Tuesdays from 12:00-1:00pm. You can still sign up as a Founding Member (at a discounted rate of $15/month) through March 31. April 1 price will go up to $25/month.
Thank you Jenna for sharing your wisdom and experience with networking! Be sure to check out Remedy Digital Agency– look at their blog for lots of helpful resources!
Forge News and Updates |
In case you missed it, Monday, March 8, 2021 was International Women’s Day. We here at Forge love to celebrate women every day of the year, but we were especially excited to applaud all of the amazing accomplishments of women during our virtual celebration.
We wanted to champion the numerous contributions women, past present, and future made to society, while highlighting some female owned businesses here in Birmingham. We had the unique privilege of hosting a panel of three incredible, hard-working women to share a bit about their lives, experiences, failures, and more.
Our panel, led by Forge’s Founder and CEO, Kim Lee, includes:
As a new Intern at Forge, I have never been to our International Women’s Day celebration, so I was excited for this event. I gained a lot of insight and advice from hearing about their experiences, both personal and professional. While Kim and the panelists covered more questions and topics than I included in this blog, I wanted to highlight and recap the ones that I felt are most relatable.
Kim Lee, Founder & CEO of Forge
Choose to Challenge
The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day Event was Choose to Challenge, and Kim started of the panel asking these women to discuss a time in their career when they ‘Chose to Challenge.’
Mindy started off the panel strong reminding me and everyone that Choosing to Challenge can be as grand or as simple as we want. However, she explains that while “we can choose to challenge…we also have to choose to hold ourselves accountable.” I think this is such an incredible reminder of how women are challengers, in every sense of the word, who have a powerful force of supporters holding them accountable and cheering them on along the way. Javacia encourages us choose to challenge by taking that leap of faith or that jump and “build[ing] [our] wings on the way down.”
Mindy Rohr, Director of Marketing at Bayer Properties
The panelists offer some advice, from their personal experience, about how to step into the unknown or make a change. Stepping away from security and comfort is never easy, neither is change. However, these women encourage us to take that risk.
Delphine Carter, Founder of Boulo Solutions
Javacia’s advice to us is to try to find the median between those differing passions – as there often is. If, for some reason, these passions do not align, Javacia encourages us to not give up on those passions, even if they become “hobbies.” Delphine reminds us that no decision is permanent and if things don’t work out that’s okay – nothing is set in stone. Mindy wraps up this question encouraging women who want to change up their careers to have conversations, ask questions, and network.
Javacia Harris Bowser, Founder of See Jane Write
These women offer up some reassurance for those busy moms who may be struggling to balance all of the different hats women have the privilege of wearing. Delphine reminds us how important it is for us, as women, to give ourselves grace and put less pressure on ourselves.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s okay! You are not alone, and there are women all around the world feeling the same way as you.
Since I couldn’t include everything that they covered on Monday, I highly encourage you to watch the entire Virtual Celebration with these inspirational women. As a soon to be graduate entering into the work force, I’m honored to learn from these women, and so many like them, so I can step into the workforce more confident and prepared.
If you’re anything like me, you are wanting to hear and learn more from these three women. Well, it is your lucky day because now you can!
In an exclusive podcast, Kim asks the panelist to take a moment to share about their failures and the lessons they’ve learned from them. While I would love to recap all of that here, I would be writing far more than you’d want to read. To hear more about these women’s experiences with failure, head over to the Building Birmingham Together podcast on Spotify and Apple.
We encourage you to choose to challenge yourself by networking and making more connections. Join us for our weekly virtual networking meetings on Tuesdays from 12:00-1:00pm. Find out more about Connect!
To all of the women in our lives. Thank you for everything you do. We, and the world, would not be the same without you.
Forge News and Updates |
This year it feels more important than ever before to shop local for the holidays. Small businesses need our support in 2020 and thankfully there are so many amazing shops around Birmingham. We’ve curated a gift guide for everyone your list.
Just remember these are gifts and not meant for you (but we won’t tell anyone if you decide to gift yourself).
For Someone With a Sweet Tooth:
Birmingham Candy
Our neighbors at Birmingham Candy Company have created a hometown candy store that everyone in Birmingham can be proud of. They’ve got every sweet you can dream of from caramel apples to fudge and truffles. Buy someone special a gift card or stop in The Pizitz Food Hall and fill up a box of goodies!
Chocolata
Chocolata uses single origin chocolate that is ethically sourced 100% from Latin America and they have so many unique flavors for you to try! If you’ve never stopped by their quaint shop on 2nd Ave. N, it’s a must see. They even have holiday gift sets that you could easily grab!
Big Spoon
Big Spoon Creamery is a small batch, artisan ice cream company and you can tell they are seriously passionate about their craft. The Big Spoon menu always focuses on seasonal flavors with local ingredients.
For Someone Who Loves To Workout
Three15
THREE15 is a workout experience combining 15 minutes of cycling, 15 minutes of barre, and 15 minutes of strength training, into one, high-energy studio fitness experience. They have locations in both Homewood and downtown. Purchase a gift card for your exercise lover friend or family member!
Ignite
Ignite is Birmingham’s only boutique cycling studio! Their main studio is in Pepper Place but they are currently offering open air rides down the street at Sloss Docks. Ignite’s Home for the Holi-Slay Series is available to students and faculty in school outside of Birmingham. Choose from 6 weeks Unlimited Rides for $125 or 3 weeks for $69.
True40
True40 is a boutique fitness studio that provides a 60 minute balanced body, low-impact workout suited for all ages and fitness levels. True40 is located in The Battery and Cahaba Heights. They even have At Home Workouts available on their website!
For the Health Food Lover
Nourish
Nourish Foods is founded by Mary Drennen and Tiffany Vickers Davis- two chefs who wanted and saw a need for healthy, fresh, creative, direct-to-customer food choices. Buy a gift card and your loved one can enjoy chef prepared, southern inspired food that’s delivered right to their door!
Blueroot
Blueroot sells delightful, delicious, and nutrient-dense food for those on the move — because they believe no one should have to sacrifice quality or nutrition for convenience. Give the gift of clean, plant-forward food that can be grabbed on the go!
Harvest Roots
Harvest Roots recently opened their Avondale location and it is definitely worth checking out! Harvest Roots Kombucha is about ingredients, freshness, and innovation. Never too sweet, never too tart. But they don’t have just kombucha- they also have house kimchi, pickles, popcorn and much more. Gift a snack or a kombucha growler to a friend this holiday season!
For Someone Who Needs to be Pampered
FancyFace Bham
Fancy Face is a clean beauty facial bar located in Southside. Facials are designed to give you refreshed skin with no downtime in 30- 45 minutes so it’s an easy way for you to treat a friend! Purchase a gift card on their website or easily schedule a facial for them.
Life Touch Massage
Who doesn’t need a massage in 2020? Give the gift of relaxation and support a downtown Birmingham business at the same time! Life Touch Massage has a wide range of services from deep tissue massage to pregnancy massage and full body scrub!
Shea Shea Beauty and Brow
Shea works right here at Forge as an esthetician and makeup artist. We have seen first hand that Shea has a devoted clientele and lots of rave reviews for her work! Shea Shea Beauty & Brow is a great way to pamper yourself or a friend.
For Someone Who Loves Local, Unique Gifts
Square One Goods Co.
Square One Goods is filled with so many fun, local goods. You can find jewelry, stationery, cards, books, candles and much more. No matter who you’re buying a gift for, you can find something unique at Square One Goods.
Trove Design Shop
Located in Woodlawn, Trove offers a carefully curated selection of “treasures” with an emphasis on craftsmanship and design. If you’re looking for antiques, home decor, aromatherapy goods, books or jewelry, Trove has it all! Right now Trove offers curbside pickup and free local delivery so you can still safely shop.
For the Plant Lover in Your Life
Botanica
Botanica has an amazing selection of tropical and desert houseplants along with unique pots! One of the best parts: Botanica’s plants can be shipped nationwide so you can send them to friends and family who aren’t local. The staff is knowledgeable and helpful if you have any questions about which plant would work best for you.
House Plant Collective
House Plant Collective is Birmingham’s pop-up plant store! They are based out of a renovated (very Instagrammable) school bus with events throughout the city. HPC staff is eager to teach you about plant care and share their plant wisdom!
Shoppe
Shoppe is nestled in Forest Park- it’s the most quaint garden shop you’ll ever see! And they don’t only have plants- inside their shop you’ll find housewares, plant accessories, books and much more. You should also stop in their other store General next door.
For the Book Lover
Thank You Books
Thank You Books is a general interest independent bookstore in the Crestwood neighborhood. Curbside pickup is available during store hours, and they will ship within the US. We love that Thank You Books is woman-owned, community-minded, gratitude-driven. Go check it out if you haven’t already!
Little Professor
Little Professor is Birmingham’s oldest independent bookstore that recently came under new ownership! Stop by their shop in Homewood and browse the aisles of Little Professor for the book lover in your life. You could even gift someone a Little Professor membership- giving them 20% off purchases, 40% off weekly bestsellers, free local delivery and pick up and much more!
Forge is in the business of growing businesses. We care about supporting fellow small business in Birmingham and we hope you do too! Please shop local during the holidays whenever you can.
