Women-Owned Businesses Set Up Shop In Salem Retail Space

SALEM, MA — At a time when many small businesses are looking to expand their online reach, Charlene Pena was eager to embrace the chance to test her proven small business in a more traditional retail model.

Pena, the founder and owner of Woven Royal — a headwear company that protects women's hair from the elements while allowing them to express themselves and keep the volume of ethnically diverse hairstyles intact — said she has built up a strong client base over the past three years through her web business while using workshop space at the Mills 58 building on Pulaski Street in Peabody.

But for the past couple of months, Woven Royal has also been one of the small, woman-owned businesses appealing to foot traffic at the North Shore Community Development Coalition's Incubator Retail Space on Lafayette Street in Salem.

The "Woman of Color" cohort includes Pena, Jesenia Morales, who owns Romeo's Juices, and Kaylee Le, who owns Love Green Station.

Together they are working through the end of October to breathe fresh new life and new voices and colors into the main street retail sector damaged during the coronavirus health crisis.

"This is an opportunity for me to see how this kind of store will do with people physically walking in," she told Patch. "You have to learn how to bring those people in. With the online store, it's a little less challenging. Online is easier — especially with social media.

"But even though it is more challenging to get people in the store, the connection is deeper. People get to know your story and what you're all about."

Pena said her business came from her experiences as a young intern working outdoors when she was faced with two choices — wearing a hat that flattened her natural hair, or letting her hair bake in the hot sun each day.

According to the Woven Royal website, with her line of headwear "your experience, background, triumphs and defeats are Woven to create you — a magnificent being that should not be flattened, changed or subdued.

"We exist to support and honor all that you are, especially your crown."

She said she enjoys sharing the space with Morales's juice business and Le's candles and creams business so that three women of color can work together to promote each other's success.

"They can sell their things to my customers and my customers will have another opportunity to buy locally owned," Pena said. "There has been a good trend in woman-owned business and the rise in female entrepreneurship."

The cohort, which opened in August, is part of the North Shore CDC's efforts to promote racial equity and expanding economic opportunities for local business owners.

“Through this experience, I have learned how to market myself as a store," she said. "What it takes to get people to come in and shop."

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(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)