Every year in early February, businesses all around the SF Bay Area begin the nomination process for East Bay Express’ Best of the Bay Awards, an annual competition that ranks top local businesses in the East Bay across industries including fitness, food and beverage, wellness. The competition may be limited to the East Bay, but it often means big exposure for the winners – the kind of awareness that can make all the difference for a small business.
This year, we’re extra excited. There are at least 10 QTPOC, queer and lbgtq-owned businesses that have nominated – wouldn’t it be amazing if our votes could create a queer take over?
Get your vote in here by March 7.
Located just a few blocks away from Oakland’s Jack London Square’s waterfront, United Grooming is what we’d call a hidden gem. Founded by LGBTQ entrepreneur Julia Nichols (she/her) in 2019, United Grooming aims to be a “parlor for the people” that offers a unique grooming experience that is welcoming to customers of every background.
With a 5-star rating on Yelp, Bayan Roots, a Filipinx QTPOC-owned massage studio that welcomes queer, trans, people of color, fat identified folx and their allies, is well-loved in Oakland. The studio Bayan Roots actively works to keep their services accessible to underserved communities with programs like their reduced rate offering, Community Roots, and monthly low-cost massage clinics.
“Specifically, we want to see more people of color, queer, transgender, and fat-identified people on our table,” says Bayan Roots founder, Rocco Foronda (they/them). “And ultimately, want them to know and believe that it is a service for them, too.” Visit Bayan in Oakland’s the Dimond District.
Their homebase may be in Alameda, but you can find nonbinary transexual Hadley Raysor (they/them) of The Dandy Dogwalker leading structured packwalks all around Oakland. Hadley is gifted at facilitating lasting behavioral changes for dogs that most folks typically categorize as ‘difficult,” but their passion for creating impact extends much deeper into Oakland’s community. “My dream is to open a brick and mortar space to be able to preserve local culture, to create and preserve local economy, and to generate income for the trans community,” says Hadley.
You can vote for Best of Alameda here.
After years of experiencing the devastating amount of toxic masculinity and body shaming that runs rampant in most fitness spaces, Radically Fit founder Luca Page, a QTPOC fitness director who grew up in the Bay Area, knew a solution was to create a different kind of space.
“Radically Fit was opened in an attempt to hold space for our most marginalized communities within our greater queer community to have a place to feel safe and thrive while moving their bodies,” says Luca. “Winning Best Of would be an amazing opportunity to help us grow this beautiful community.”
As a body positive community gym for all queer, trans, POC, big bodied and fat identified folx and their allies, regardless of experience or ability, Radically Fit offers ground-breaking classes created specifically for and by the trans and gender nonconforming, black and brown queers, and fat-identified communities.
(pictured from left to right: Sana Javeri Kadrim founder of Diaspora Spice, Eli Viiningm founder of Queerconomy, Nenna Joiner, founder of Feelmore, and Gabrielle Hooks, founder of Queer in Oakland.)Creating new businesses that are radical in their mission, hiring practices or sourcing methods is critical to any community’s long-term health. But the process of doing so is no easy feat, especially when an entrepreneur is part of marginalized LGBTQ identities with less access.
Trans non-binary founder Eli Vining (they/them) and their team aims to help change that by offering business coaching and events for queer identified entrepreneurs.
Queerconomy’s main goal is to help support an economic system which centers the needs of marginalized communities and is built on the principles of equity, justice and prosperity for all.
Breakfast? Brunch? Linner? Despite Oakland and San Francisco being some of California’s queer hot spots, it can be surprisingly difficult to find local LGBTQ+ owned
Black, Trans Oakland Creator Releases Coaching Program to Help Align with One’s Personal Power Saint Hall (he/him) a trans creator from Oakland, has launched creatorofself.co,
February 2024 is primed to be packed with hot, sexy, sweet and romance themed LGBTQ+ events for queer and trans folks in the Bay. From
Montana H. loves karaoke, queers and a good, healthy houseplant. She grew up in the East Bay, and after a brief stint in Seattle, promised she would never leave again.
