If you hadn’t noticed it on social media, roller skating is making a comeback! But if you are tardy to the party, no worries! These three Black women have figured it out. The owners of Rollin’ Clt in Charlotte, North Carolina, Brandi Fox, Kendria Holmes, and Sh’niqua Ussery, are the first Black women-owned skating rink in their city.
Owning a skating rink has been a goal of Kendria Holmes since 2016. The following year, the former professional basketball player met business consultant Brandi Fox in a business incubator program and shared her idea. However, Brandi met the creative Sh’niqua Ussery three years later, and Sh’niqua had the same idea of a roller rink. Brandi decided to connect the two ladies, and shortly after Rollin’ Clt was created.
Rollin’ Clt is an outdoor skating rink currently located at Armory Cow Brewing, but they also have a mobile side of their business where they take their floor out to different locations when booked. In honor of National Roller Skating Month, we were privileged to sit down with two of the ladies, Brandi and Sh’niqua, and learn more about their journey.
Fancy: So, first question for the both of you. How would you describe your SwagHer? What makes you, you?
Brandi: I would describe myself as pretty fun. I’m like the perfect balance of work hard, but also real, real fun. I’m really business-oriented. Entrepreneurship is my thing. I’ve been an entrepreneur for ten years. I own a mobile spa company here in Charlotte. We’re Charlotte’s first mobile spa company, Pamper Us, a mobile massage service. I also own a mobile grooming business, and I do startup business consulting. I just love entrepreneurship. So that’s definitely how I would describe myself in the group. I’m kind of like the business one. Oh, and I love it though, and we still balance each other out. Ken (Kendria) is more out there. She is more at the forefront, but yeah, we kind of mix together for a little bit.
Sh’niqua: I’m the baby of the group. So I’m the one that brings all the excitement, all the jokes. You know, I’m the one that’s never serious. So yeah, that’s pretty much me. I’m just the baby, the little sister. I get on everybody’s nerves.
Fancy: So I know that it was initially Kendria’s vision. How do you all feel about joining in someone’s vision? For me personally, I know that could be a little hard because I’m not really one to share, so how did you all feel about the situation?
Brandi: I would say I was kind of nervous because, with my other three businesses, I started those by myself. This was my first partnership, and I’m the same way as you. Well, I felt like I was the same way. You know, I like to do my own thing. For example, if I want to add a new service, I added it. I was used to making my own decisions and not talking to anybody. That’s one thing that I kind of love about doing my own thing. But when Sh’niqua reached out to me about the skating rink, I was like- one thing about us, we like to stay in our lane. (laughs) So I was like, I don’t know anything about a skating rink. I didn’t even know skating was popping enough for us to do it, but I was like, “But I got a homegirl and that was her vision. That’s what she wanted to do.” So I was like, let’s connect. We tell people all the time that it’s ironic how we literally were clear about what we were looking for at our first meeting. We always said that we would do something for the community, we wanted to make a difference, and that money wasn’t gonna break us apart. We agreed that we would give 110% and make Rollin’ what we wanted it to be. And I think once we got on the same page, it was just rolling from there.
Fancy: And so Sh’niqua you already had an interest in a skating rink?
Sh’niqua: Yes, Brandi helps me with my other business. So I reached out to her, and I told her, “I’m thinking about a skating rink. I got this idea, boom, boom, boom…” So she was like, Alright, hold that thought. I got somebody, and that’s kind of how Ken and I connected. Brandi was like, “I think we all should do it. You know, we all should work together. I linked y’all together. Let’s do it.” That’s kind of how it went, and Ken had things that she was already working on. She had a lot of stuff like the background of it. It was just an idea of mine, you know. I didn’t have much of anything, and then we just put my current ideas together and stuff that Ken had worked on, and Brandi gave some ideas and feedback. So we said, “Alright, let’s do it.”
Fancy: So, did everyone know how to skate?
Sh’niqua: We know the basics. We know how to go forward, and we know how to stop.
Brandi: I know how to go backward too.
Sh’niqia: We know the basics, but we aren’t skaters.
Brandi: We actually started rolling lessons last Thursday. So that’s something that we’re all gonna be doing. We’re looking forward to learning how to skate and being able to skate with customers as the owners. They love that connection. So, we’re looking forward to learning the same skills that our customers are learning. I would say our ultimate goal is kind of make Charlotte like that skater’s hub. You know how you hear about Atlanta, California, and Detroit? Through our classes, we want to have enough people to roll bounce skate to where people will be like, “Oh y’all, let’s go to Charlotte to skate!”
Fancy: Okay, I like that idea. I do see a lot of people skating, and I don’t know how to skate myself, but it looks like so much fun. You want to be a skater’s hub. I like that. So after you all came together on one accord, what was next?
Brandi: Where were we going to store it? That was the most significant thing because when you think skating rink, you kind of only think the main thing of what we know, the old school stuff, like a building. However, I can say that we started with the things that we liked and didn’t like about skating rinks. So we actually hosted our symposium, and we set out to invite everybody, including skaters. We got on the zoom and discussed what skaters liked and didn’t like, and we also send out questionnaires. So from the beginning, we were able to kind of figure out what we need to do, because our goal was, of course, to do something that hasn’t been done. So once we got feedback from a lot of skaters and people who wanted to learn how to skate, we took it from there. We wanted to have a building; that was our initial concept, but we decided to come back to it, COVID and real estate and that kind of stuff. We needed to figure out how we could still implement our vision. That’s when we came up with the outdoor skating rink idea. At first, it was funny because we just kind of played around with it. We threw it out, and then once we started really, really thinking about it, we were like, “You know what, an outdoor skating rink will be good,” Brandi recalls. She continued, “And it allowed us to test it (the idea) and let us do something different because a lot of people really wanted to be outside due to COVID. So once we got there, the next steps for us were finding the location and getting the team together. We literally went full speed ahead.”
From there, we connected with our network. I would say that would be the biggest thing with all of us being Charlotte natives; we could reach out to people we knew. So we were able to reach out to skaters, you know, and deejays. We were able to get out and get together as Charlotte natives, just those basic things that we needed.
Fancy: So who does what?
Brandi: Sh’niqua is very creative. She does our outfits. She’s very organized. The day of coordination- anything detail orient, Sh’niqua handles. She’s very good at that. For me, I handle all the back-office business. So the programs and contracts, that we use- I kind of handle all the backend work, and Ken is kind of on the forefront. So if you call us she’s the person who’s probably going to be calling back. Ken books all the parties. She handles the interviews and all that stuff. She’s the one sending out the Google Calendar, making sure that we are there and on time, making sure that the lighting is good. So we legit are like the perfect blend, and we do a good job staying in our lanes.
Fancy: What has been your biggest challenge so far?
Brandi: Being this is something new for us. So, of course, when we first started, we were looking for investors. We were able to connect with a few, and I can say it was definitely challenging. It made us realize how hard it is for African Americans. For example, we asked for a very minimum amount, but one of the investors we reached out to basically wanted us to sell our souls. It was a male group, and they wanted us to put so much at risk to get the funding they offered.
In addition, they didn’t take us seriously because we are women. Even though we had our business plan, we had everything written out, we had our location, we had the date that we were opening, but it seemed like everything we had wasn’t enough. They always kind of double back, and me being in business- I’ve done pitch competitions and won. I’ve invested in myself. So I know the things that go into it, and I felt like men have it a little easier being in the investment space. I felt that if we had a man on board, it would have made it easier for us. Even if we had had a white person, it would have been easier. I felt like because we are three Black females, everyone was side-eyeing us. Even to the point where I was talking to one of my business advisers about it, and they came to me like, “Have you ever thought about adding a white person to the team?” Kind of like what they did back in the day, putting what you want your target market to see in the front. And for me, I was like, “No”. I mean, we are three Black women starting a business. Why is that not enough? Why do we have to have a white person? Why do we have to have a male to validate our idea? Why are we not enough? So that was a challenge that we faced, but we were able to get that startup funding. Coincidentally, the people that funded us were African American females. So you know, it goes back into having to lean on our own to get what we need done. I feel like we’re the only ones who believe in us.
The ladies of Rollin’ Clt celebrated their launch on September 6, 2021, and have been rolling every since. They have secured their first contract with an HBCU and plan to do a Rollin’ HBCU tour in March 2022. Their indoor location is expected to be ready by September 20, 2022.
