Arnyce Foster-Hernandez, 50, and her husband, Danny Hernandez, 49, are dedicated to standing up for the Harlem community through their business, Featuring the Café on 135th Street. But their journey to securing the space and opening in June 2024 was not without hurdles — challenges they now hope to share in order to inspire and guide other ambitious entrepreneurs.
Several of their products are sourced from small businesses, many of which are Black and LGBTQ owned. They include coffee, tea, pastry, natural fruit juice, and spices. Some of the food made by Danny in their small kitchen are sandwiches and desserts. The banana pudding and overnight oats are two popular items. The couple are also proud of the seasonal and organic food and beverages, a massive upgrade from the processed sugars and ingredients at the local bodegas.
Both Arnyce and Danny are lifelong New Yorkers, and have backgrounds working with the New York City Parks Department for decades. The two met at an event in 2011. Arnyce says she was passionate about creating this organization after seeing the ways in which Black men were being disproportionately hurt by “stop and frisk” policies and unable to find jobs.
Arnyce learned the art of cooking and using fresh organic items early on from family, namely her great grandparents in Henderson, N.C., on their farm where they would eat everything organically grown. She says she knew early that wanted to be in the culinary field, as she was drawn to TV chefs like Jacques Pépin and Julia Child.
Arnyce holds multiple degrees: an associate’s in nursing education from the Borough of Manhattan Community College, a culinary degree from The French Culinary Institute, a Bachelor of Business Administration from Ashford University, and an MBA from Louisiana State University.
She says the struggles of being Black in the Parks Department followed her throughout her tenure, pointing to how segregated it became under Mayor Rudy Giuliani and noting that Black women were consistently passed over for promotion.
“I have four degrees, not because I’m an overachiever, but because I had to keep being competitive to get promoted in an arena where white people didn’t have to do anything. They didn’t have to be educated, qualified or competent at all,” Arnyce said. After her tenure in NYC Parks, she had served as Parks and Recreation commissioner for North Hempstead in Long Island, but knew that she was tired of using her skills there when she could put that effort into her own business.
“I was battling that shallow-minded ignorance of people who didn’t have exposure to Black people in leadership. And it was exhausting,” Arnyce said. “I told my husband, ‘I can’t keep availing my skills and my talent that I’ve acquired over all of these years for the government when we can do it for ourselves for our business.’”
Despite all the education, the process of obtaining loans, sponsors, and grants has been one challenge after another for the couple.
“It’s becoming increasingly more and more difficult to continue the sustainment because of the small things nickel and diming small businesses, because of the policies and guidelines and we feel like that’s really pushing us out, as opposed to really endearing us,” Danny said.
After the two-year process of trying to lock down a location and not receiving help from loan agencies, on the day before their son DJ’s birthday, Arnyce was delighted to discover a location on 135th Street open for leasing. It has not been without infrastructure issues.
“This little, tiny place brought me down to my knees the amount of stuff that landlords are allowed to get away with violating building codes and health department violations and electrical rewind. It was a mess in here,” Arnyce said. While Danny still works as a manager with the Parks Department, Arnyce works full time at the shop 10-12 hours a day, six days a week. The couple cannot afford to hire any employees, but are still intent on opening a larger space with a full kitchen to be able to fulfill all the ambitions of their business.
The cafe is only part of their mission to support Arnyce’s nonprofit, Featuring the Center for Culinary Arts, a 501(c)(3) founded in 2021 to provide culinary education, with a particular focus on community members in need of economic opportunity. Participants in the program would be paid for the full two years, with the first spent training in the arts and the second, being placed with humanitarian relief organizations. Arnyce says they would continue paying the members until they find a full-time position, even if it goes beyond the two years. They have yet to be able to launch as they are hoping to raise up to an annual endowment of $250,000 to start with in covering two participants.
The couple says they are committed to building community with their customers and aim to become profitable by early 2026. At the cafe, they have hosted a range of events — including a women’s empowerment meeting, a community meet-and-greet, an NYPD Build the Block session, and various sip-and-chat gatherings — and they continue to offer the space as a platform for community members to share helpful information with others.
Danny is proud whenever kids in the neighborhood can come in after school and try their items and share with their families.
“It’s gonna take a village to have this become sustainable, and we want it to be that way, because it’s gonna take people’s interest to keep us going,” Danny said.