Tucked in the middle of the Park Square shopping center on Everhart is Kae’s Emporium, one of the oldest Black owned businesses in Corpus Christi that’s still in operation.
“This is a new client of mine,” Kenyata Evans said as he twisted a customer’s hair inside the salon in the back of Kae’s. “I’m using a new technique on him.”
Kenyata has been a barber and loctician for twenty years at Kae’s.
“It could take all day,” Kenyata said. “But this shouldn’t take more than 3 hours tops.”
He would spend three hours on his feet working on just one customer and still had the rest of the work day to go.
Just an arm lengths away from Kenyata’s chair, was his mom Kae Evans, the owner of the salon and beauty shop.
“She started doing hair when she was 16, Kenyata said about his mom. “Doing corn rows for my dad and his friends.”
Kenyata said as she got older, his mom noticed Corpus Christi didn’t have much to offer when it came to the beauty needs of the Black community.
“There was absolutely nothing other than going to your Sally’s or Walmart to find any Black products at all and they were so limited and so it was scarce,” Kenyata said. “It was hard.”