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Welcome to Union Market District Radio powered by Caandor Labs, an audio experience at the intersection of culture and commerce. Today, we're excited to host a great conversation with the proud Salvadoreño, husband and wife duo Fernando Gonzalez and Debby Portillo. They are the culinary and entrepreneurial masterminds behind 2Fifty BBQ. Recently ranked by the Washington Post as the best BBQ spot in the region, 2Fifty is on a mission to bring authentic central Texas barbecue with a twist of Latinidad to the District. Learn more about 2Fifty and The Media Lab at UnionMarket.com

Welcome to Union Market District Radio powered by Caandor Labs, an audio experience at the intersection of culture and commerce. Today’s episode is a roundtable conversation inspired by Union Market’s new mural on Sixth St NE. The mural, designed by artist Brandan “BMike” Odums, features five local Black women who are founders and entrepreneurs from the Black Girl Ventures (BGV) network, an accelerator providing virtual communities for Black and Brown woman-identifying founders to access capital and capacity building in order to meet business milestones that lead to economic advancement through entrepreneurship. The mural is a continuation of BGV's new partnership with Nike that aims at elevating Black and Brown woman-identifying Founders through the arts by shining a light on their work as community change agents. The piece itself features a few lines from the spoken word poem, “Entrepreneurship is a Boxing Match.” Written by BGV’s Founder and CEO Shelly Omilàdè Bell, the poem is read at the start of each BGV pitch competition. Guests: Brittany Young, Founder & CEO, B360 Dawn Myers, Founder & CEO, The Most Naza Shelley, Co-Founder, CarpeDM Anika Hobbs, Founder, Nubian Hueman

In this episode, Bryant “BeMo” Brown, a Cultural Analyst of Creative Theory leads a discussion around the role of Black businesses in the DC community and the past, present and future of Black entrepreneurism. Featured Guests: Kevon King, Co-Founder of The Village Café DC; Andra “AJ” Johnson, Managing Partner of Serenata; Toyin Alli Owner/ Chef of Puddin’.

Recreating a Restaurant Experience at Home If there’s a silver lining of quarantine, it’s that we better understand the importance of gathering with our friends, family and loved ones. As we begin the holiday season in this new normal, Amanda McClements, Founder + Creative Director of Salt & Sundry speaks to Gina Chersevani, Mixologist + Founder of Buffalo & Bergen and Nicholas Stefanelli, Chef + Founder of Masseria about their memories of gathering and togetherness plus recipes and seasonal tips inspired by those times of commune.

In this episode, Claudia Watts speaks with Joe Lapan of Songbyrd Music House and Cafe and the recently opened Byrdland in Union Market District, Mallory Shelter of Mallory Shelter Jewelry and Gary Williams of Creative Theory Agency to discuss how their businesses have overcome the challenges onset by the coronavirus and racial injustice pandemics and continued to innovate in a time of change.

The La Cosecha Foundation was created with a mission to foster entrepreneurship and support community prosperity locally and throughout Latin America. The Foundation directly supports TECHO, an organization present in 19 Latin American countries, which works to end poverty through the joint action of its inhabitants and young volunteers. Hosted by comedian Andrea Lopez, this is a conversation on the intersection of entrepreneurship, community philanthropy and Latin American culture with Pelayo Achondo, Regional Director of Development at TECHO, Araceli Ledesma Community Leader of Techo based in Buenos Aires, and Chef Iris Jimenez of La Casita, one of La Cosecha’s resident retailers.

To Celebrate the installation of Celebrating Melanin + Black History at Union Market, we sat down in (virtual) conversation with Claudia M. Watts, Managing Editor, WI Bridge and three participating artists to discuss what "ALL" black lives means visually. Celebrating Melanin is a district-wide outdoor photography installation featuring 25 works by five DMV photographers celebrating the beauty, variety, interest and pride of Black heritage.

The future of retail is about community. At La Cosecha, the new Latin American marketplace in Washington, D.C.’s Union Market District, soft diplomacy meets a blend of both “fast retail” — quick and easy transactions — and “slow retail” — a stage for socialization, discovery, and entertainment — in a single, artfully-curated space for culture, or cultura. Connecting with designers, local embassies, tastemakers, and cultural attaches from all across Latin America and the D.C. Metro area, developer EDENS was able to do just that. In today’s episode of the Gensler Design Exchange podcast, we sit down with EDENS CEO Jodie McLean, El Cielo Hospitality Group Owner and Chef JuanMa Barrientos, and Ambassador of Colombia to the United States, Francisco Santos Calderón, to discuss La Cosecha’s cultural impact, authenticity, and significance in the nation’s capital.

In today’s digitally empowered, time-starved, and relentlessly distracted world, it is fundamental that the design of the built environment begins and ends with: the human experience. In episode one of the Gensler Design Exchange’s exclusive series with La Cosecha — the contemporary Latin marketplace, designed collaboratively by EDENS and Gensler, in Washington, D.C. — we talked with EDENS’ Senior VP Brand + Culture Norma Morales and Nova Bossa founder and CEO Carolina Furukrona on how La Cosecha is leveraging food, retail, and heritage to create a space that transcends the traditional “food hall” in favor of a dynamic marketplace and mission-driven community space where everyone is welcome. Today, we’re peeling back the next layer of La Cosecha’s Mercado (market), Arte (art), and Cultura (culture) principles to discuss how the space’s mindfully curated design and art selection establishes a cultural touch-point authentically representative of today’s Latin America. Our host, Gensler’s Brandon Larcom, returns to La Cosecha’s Estudio to talk with EDENS Managing Director Bill Caldwell, Gensler Design Director Walter Trujillo, and IBD Mural Artist Mariela Ajras about how the collaboration between EDENS, Gensler, and local artists and designers culminated in an eclectic celebration of Latin American arte.

Globally, markets have made their mark in history as epicenters of commerce and conversation, where communities come together to exchange. People have an innate need to engage with one another, and in today’s era of belonging and inclusivity, brands have begun to embrace the power of physical space as platforms to create meaningful experiences for and build lasting relationships with their customers. This week, we are excited to introduce a three-part series on the Gensler Design Exchange podcast in collaboration with EDENS. Together, over the course of the next three months, we will explore how contemporary Latin marketplace La Cosecha (“the harvest”), designed by EDENS and Gensler, transcends the traditional concept of a marketplace by planting the seeds for a wide variety of ripe cultural immersion experiences cultivated by a dynamic community in Washington, D.C.’s historic Union Market District. Each episode will break down the foundational elements of La Cosecha — Mercado (market), Arte (art), and Cultura (culture) — to dig into the practice of cultural placemaking and how intentional space design can help to bridge cultures and create inclusive platforms for community and connection.