Gets Real: LGBTQ+ owned business in spotlight during Pride Month
During June, celebrating Gay Pride, KIRO 7 is highlighting local businesses owned by members of the LGBTQ-plus community.
'Fat's Chicken and Waffles' has been serving up chicken and waffles and a whole lot more in Seattle's Central District for a decade.
The owner and main server happen to be a married couple, a couple of Erikas!
They are a couple in business, a couple in life, too. And don't you dare misspell the first name they both share.
'It's E-R-I-K-A,' said Erika Kidd, laughing.
'And we are the Erikas!' chimed in Erika White.
Erika White and her wife, Erika Kidd, delicately navigate the space at White's restaurant 'Fat's Chicken and Waffles' in Seattle's Central District.
Why did you want to open a restaurant? White was asked.
'Ah, well, when I was growing up my father was a chef,' White said. 'So, you know, our house was like the host house and it was always like great parties and good food. And, you know, I love to cook as well.'
But White had other loves, too. She was on the 1987 Garfield High School Girls' State Championship Basketball Team. And she was big in Seattle's hip-hop scene until the 2010s.
That's when she reconnected with Erika Kidd and opened Fat's Chicken.
'It's been 10 years, all the way across the board,' Kidd said. 'Yeah, it's been a great journey, yeah.'
'You're both gay,' they were asked. 'Has that ever been a factor at all in your work, in your, in the way the community has treated you?'
'I mean, it's different for everybody, I guess, you know,' Kidd said. 'Family and friends and community, you know.'
'I feel like our friends, even our straight friends, you know everyone just, there's just love,' White said. 'At our wedding it was just love.'
Fat's Chicken and Waffles is one of several LGBTQ-plus businesses featured by The Intentionalist, a Seattle-based social enterprise focused on giving incentives to the rest of us to spend our money here.
'Folks will be able to explore and hopefully discover LGBTQ-owned small businesses.
Laura Clise is The Intentionalist's founder and CEO.
'Folks can enjoy a free treat thanks to the BECU equity in action pre-pay tab,' said Clise. 'And our hope is folks get a little taste and then come back for more.'
A little taste of Pride, too.
Eight LGBTQ-plus restaurants in the greater Seattle area are featured on the Intentionalist's website.
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Forbes
4 hours ago
- Forbes
Cannonball Arts Opening Keeps Momentum For Revitalized Downtown Seattle Rolling
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'Going into their office, I was like, 'We want a couple hundred thousand dollars to put your name on a banner at a music festival,' and it ended up turning into a much bigger gesture and a much larger, longer-term commitment,' Lundgren said. 'I was caught off guard that they were receptive to hearing other opportunities to collaborate, and shocked that they rose their hand to doing the largest art center that Seattle has ever seen in a part of downtown which some people think is full of drug addicts and crazy people.' Lundgren went to the Tribe looking for a sponsorship and ended up with the Muckleshoot as part owner of the company. The partnership allowed Cannonball Arts to move from idea to reality with a full grand opening to the public coming August 20, 2025. 'We've got a five-ton cedar log in our lobby which (members of the Muckleshoot Tribe) will be carving out as a dugout canoe. 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That's the hope for Cannonball Arts. For Seattle. 'The story that the world doesn't hear that often is that we have an incredibly rich pool of creativity, some of it is well employed and some of it unemployed, but our greatest resource are the people that live here,' he said. 'I don't think the artists and the creatives that are here are getting the attention or the opportunity or the resources to fully see their ideas realized.' Cannonball Art's mission is serving local artists as well as the public. The same artists whose talents it will rely on for success. 'It'd be an idiotic thing to do if there wasn't a tremendous amount of creative talent here,' Lundgren said of opening a gigantic, multi-media, public, contemporary arts center. 'Between the tech sector–everyone gives people that work at Microsoft or Amazon or Meta this hard time for destroying the city or stealing jobs or making it more expensive–that talent pool, just by itself, is enormous.' 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If kooky Meow Wolf can become a global sensation in Santa Fe, NM drawing off a small portion of Santa Fe's tourist pool and local residents, a far smaller number than Seattle has, why can't Cannonball Arts similarly excel? 'I would never have opened a 2,000 square foot art gallery in downtown Seattle because it doesn't have the critical mass and the momentum,' Lundgren said. 'You have to go in big and make a destination that will draw people out, (where) they can spend a couple hours. If we're truly successful, we've changed people's relationship to art, both from a corporate level and from a visitor level. I want people to see Cannonball as a place they can come once a week and hang out, not once a year, or every couple of years. I want it to be more like a YMCA that people have memberships to and meet their friends at and socialize in.' Cannonball Arts feels like the answer to Lundgren's question. 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