East Bay entrepreneur turns her passion into a lemonade business
OAKLAND -- If you've been to Oakland's First Fridays or local events, you may have heard of The Lemonade Bar. Founder Imani M-Glover and her family sell lemonade made from unique and fresh ingredients you may not typically find in lemonade.
One of their most popular is their lemonade with lavender. But making it all comes with a process.
It starts in the kitchen. Typically on Thursdays, Imani and her kids will go to a local commercial kitchen and make the lemonade. Every person has a role, and each is essential.
"I want them to have a really good feeling that they can taste and feel each sip," Imani said.
And that requires fresh ingredients grown at local farms.
"I make a goodness lemonade. And that one is a lot of labor of love too. That's organic mint, organic watermelon," M-Glover said.
"A labor of love" is how she describes the process of making it all.
M-Glover said entrepreneurship is in her DNA. When she was in high school, she would sell popcorn balls at school so that she could help her mom out and pay for her extracurriculars.
Fast forward to now, and she's turned her hobby into a business. It wasn't easy getting there, but she tells others if they have a passion, go for it.
"Just do you and do the best you can do because no one can make lemonade like Imani, no one can make lemonade like the next person," she said.
Those are words that she's also passing onto her children.
When it comes time to packing up in the kitchen, M-Glover and her kids go to their headquarters. It's a place where they plan out an event and also where her other passion lies -- writing.
She's written several books, but her most recent one is called Fostering Foster. She wrote it with her son Solomon. The inspiration behind it is her own life.
So behind all of the hard work, the lemonade and the books, the motivation comes from her family.
"I'm trying to leave a legacy for my boys so they can leave it generationally for their children and their children," she said.
