After 10 years of working in corporate America, Toyia Montgomery decided to follow her dream of being an entrepreneur and open up her own coffee shop.
Montgomery’s café, located at 261 W. McMillan in Clifton,
Cliqq and Sip, was not only created to serve coffee and pastries. It also serves as a place where the community can come together.
With free Wi-Fi, laptop rentals and meeting space, C&S was designed so that people of all backgrounds to have a place to meet, create and learn.
“The idea was to put people’s talents and strengths on a pedestal,” Montgomery says. “So many of us get caught up in doing something we don’t like or want to do just to pay the bills.”
Montgomery sees her shop as a place where people who don’t have Internet access can go to access the world as well as a community-oriented resource. For example, she hosted meet-and-greets with new Cincinnati police chief, James Craig, judges and City Council members.
C&S also hosts a group, called Connext, which meets each week to discuss how to start and run non-profits. Group members hold each other accountable for the goals they set and push each other to pursue their ideas.
Montgomery’s civic-mindedness caught the attention of the
YWCA. As a woman-owned coffee shop, Cliqq and Sip seemed an ideal location for a reception for a YWCA’s event October 27,which highlights the U.S. Department of Labor’s new organization, Women in Apprenticeships and NonTraditional Occupations (WANTO). WANTO aims to recruit, train and retain women in nontraditional careers, such as electricians, plumbers and carpenters. The goal is to get 100 women in Cincinnati entered into registered apprenticeship programs.
By Evan Wallis
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