When Zhakaria Green was 9 years old, she watched the animated film The Princess and the Frog and fell in love with Princess Tiana, Disney’s first African-American princess. The film also introduced her to beignets and the dream of opening her own snack shop. When she couldn’t find any beignets in St. Louis, Zhakaria researched recipes and made her own.
“They came out perfect,” she recalls. In May, her dream of opening her own shop came true with the debut of Z’s Variety Snack Shop, in Benton Park, where the now 14-year-old Zhakaria serves her homemade beignets.
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Zhakaria’s mom, Chandra “Chan” Davis, owns Lefty’s Fried Rice, two doors down from the snack shop. While Chan helped Zhakaria secure the location and has taught her about running a restaurant, she left the vision entirely to her daughter. Zhakaria was hands-on in renovating the former nail salon into a bright, welcoming space filled with sweet and savory snacks, as well as a couple of tables and a rack filled with books to read in shop and for purchase. Zhakaria’s favorite subject in school is reading, and she’s curated a range of books from Dr. Seuss to 10-year-old Takiyah L. Prowell’s Re-Read the Reader, a book about a young girl in St. Louis who gains superpowers through reading.
Just like her superhero, Princess Tiana, Zhakaria dresses as a princess when she’s working at the shop, where she serves her flavored beignets, banana pudding from Ms. Monnie’s, doughnuts from Pharoah’s and Old Town Donuts, coffee, slushies, milkshakes, hot dogs, nachos, and chips. Soon, the shop will also offer breakfast items, such as pancakes, bacon, and breakfast sandwiches, courtesy of Lefty’s.
Every day, Zhakaria puts money aside into an envelope for rent. And at Hazelwood Central, she’ll begin high school in a couple of weeks, after turning 15, teaching her friends about budgets and taxes. When she began thinking about what owning a business would entail, Zhakaria says she prepared to speak with adults. “Growing up faster helps me talk to people and understand a little more about what adults say and why they say it,” she says, “why they’re tired after coming home from work.”
Chan says she’s proud of her daughter and hopes that she’ll be an inspiration to other teens. Zhakaria, who’s donned one of her princess dresses and shared her baked goods with children at an area hospital, calls her opportunity a blessing. Looking ahead, Zhakaria has her sights on real estate development and engineering, though for now she’s focusing on the shop, her first year of high school, and studying for her driver’s permit.
