When One Door Opens, Enin Brings Others With Her
The first time Enin Jzar opened the door to her own storefront, she could finally see the things that had lived in her imagination.
The art. The herbs. The products on the shelves. The space she had carefully envisioned and was now beginning to create.
“Everything that I’ve had on paper—it’s like, ‘Oh, there it is,’” she said. “I can look around and go, ‘Oh my God.’”
The moment still feels a little unreal.
Enin is the owner of At Ease ATL, an herbs and wellness business and one of the newest businesses at The Front Porch on Auburn Avenue. She describes herself as a public health professional, mother, photographer, serial entrepreneur and “herb enthusiast.”
Her relationship with herbs began as a child, growing up in a family where natural remedies and caring for others were simply part of life. Her family organized block parties and fed neighbors, even when there was little extra to share.
“We were deeply rooted in the community,” Enin said. “So I had that on me.”
Years later, that foundation would shape At Ease ATL.
Enin launched the business in 2024, selling herbs and wellness products at pop-ups and markets before eventually getting her products onto the shelves of a downtown grocery store. But she wanted something more: a storefront of her own.
The opportunity came through a downtown storefront grant program.
At first, the program seemed out of reach. The grant operated as a reimbursement, requiring businesses to spend money before receiving the funds back.
“What small microbusiness has $5,000 to $50,000 to put into a place and then wait ages to get this money back?” Enin asked.
Many entrepreneurs might have stopped there.
Enin kept listening.
When she learned that a landlord could participate in the grant process, she saw another possibility. She found an unfinished space at The Front Porch and made her pitch.
She was direct.
“I have no money,” she remembers explaining. “I am a microbusiness.”
What she did have was an opportunity to bring grant funding to the space, a vision for At Ease ATL and the willingness to ask.
“The only thing you can do is ask, and the only thing they can say is no,” she said.
The answer was yes.
Through coordination among HDDC, which owns The Front Porch, the grant program and the property owner, the pieces came together. Enin secured the space and began transforming what had existed on paper into a business with a front door on Auburn Avenue.
Of all the spaces she considered, The Front Porch felt different.
“This one felt like family,” she said. “This one is rooted in community. Auburn Avenue, of all places.”
For Enin, community is not an abstract idea or a marketing message. It is how she believes business should work.
She introduces herself to people who live nearby. She sends visitors down the street to try Coffee Was Black. She invites them to bring their coffee back to At Ease ATL and stay awhile. She is already thinking about collaborations, community programming and ways the businesses at The Front Porch can grow together.
“I want people to feel like there is no competition,” she said. “This is community. I’m looking out for you.”
She sums it up even more simply: “When it comes to community, nah, it’s us.”
That philosophy extends to the shelves inside At Ease ATL, where Enin carries products from more than 20 small and microbusinesses, many owned by entrepreneurs she met while building her own business.
“I knew when I made it, we all gon’ make it,” she said. “I get in, we all get in.”
That spirit of shared opportunity is central to the vision for The Front Porch and HDDC’s work to strengthen the neighborhood economy through entrepreneurship and affordable commercial space.
For Enin, the relationship between affordable space and community impact is straightforward. The less a small business must spend simply to keep its doors open, the more possible it becomes to keep its products accessible to the people it hopes to serve.
“If I’m not being charged $8,000 a month or something like that, I don’t have to charge for the things that I’m putting into the space,” she said. “You don’t have to pass on the cost.”
“You still have to understand who you are serving and who your community truly is.”
Enin has only been in her storefront a short time, but the opportunity is already changing what she believes is possible.
She is learning the everyday realities of operating a brick-and-mortar business. She wants to expand her wellness programming, hire employees as the business grows and help more people discover herbs and natural approaches to wellness.
She also wants to see more entrepreneurs filling the storefronts around her.
“More businesses!” she said when asked what she hopes to see next at The Front Porch. “It can just be a space where this community can thrive and feel welcomed.”
Enin understands how rare that kind of opportunity can be for a microbusiness.
“There must be more done for microbusinesses,” she said. “I wish there were more opportunities for microbusinesses to be at the forefront or just be visible.”
Her own journey shows what can happen when that opportunity exists.
A young business gets a storefront.
A microbusiness owner gets the chance to learn, grow and become part of a historic commercial corridor.
More than 20 other entrepreneurs get space on her shelves.
Visitors are introduced to neighboring businesses. New collaborations begin. Money and opportunity have more chances to circulate within the community.
And a business owner who once wondered how her products would perform without her standing beside them now has a space of her own where she can welcome people in.
For Enin, that is what makes The Front Porch special.
“It’s community. It’s Black enterprise. It’s Black wealth and promise,” she said. “I’m just glad to stick a toe in it.”
The vision that once existed only on paper now has a front door on Auburn Avenue.
And Enin is holding it open for others.