By Sym Posey | The Birmingham Times
Inside the Hoover Public Library, tucked among shelves of books and quiet study spaces, visitors can find something they may not expect: a specialty café built around coffee, food, community and connection.
NOIR, located at 200 Municipal Drive, is the collaborative creation of Birmingham-area entrepreneurs Tierra Jeter and Tiffaney Strayhorne.
For Jeter and Strayhorne, the café represents more than another business venture. It is the result of two established entrepreneurs bringing their individual talents together to create a space they believe can serve as a hub for people building, creating, and striving for something more.
And perhaps the most interesting part of their partnership is that neither woman expected it.
“I’ve always admired her from afar,” Strayhorne said of Jeter. “I never imagined that we would be working together at this level, but I’m so happy that it’s her.”
The two first became acquainted after participating in a business accelerator program together and later crossed paths again through Jeter’s beverage catering work at Highland Park Golf Course.
Jeter had been providing beverage services at events there for several years when she invited Strayhorne to one of the gatherings. Their conversation revealed something they already had but had not yet recognized: complementary businesses and complementary strengths.
Soon after, the women came across a request for proposals that would eventually lead them to NOIR.
They sat down, assessed what each brought to the table and began building.
A Passion for Food
Strayhorne, a Birmingham native, has operated Pauline’s Fine Cakes & Desserts since 2017. Her passion for cooking and baking stretches back much further, however, rooted in the kitchen and the influence of the grandmother who raised her.
“I’ve really been baking and cooking all my life,” Strayhorne said. “I have a passion for food. I enjoy cooking.”
Pauline’s began as a way for Strayhorne to share desserts with family and friends before the business grew during the COVID-19 pandemic. She took classes to perfect her cake-decorating skills, returned to her job after the pandemic, and soon found that demand for her cakes had taken off.
She followed the opportunity.
At NOIR, that same passion for food has expanded beyond desserts. Strayhorne oversees the café’s food operation and serves as its executive chef, developing the sandwiches, paninis and other offerings while training staff to execute them.
Her approach is intentional: Food should be fresh, prepared when ordered and made with care.
“Everything is made with love,” Strayhorne said.
Rooted in Family
Jeter’s path to NOIR is similarly rooted in family.
A Bessemer native, Jeter founded LaFleur Coffee Boutique six years ago, although the idea had been developing for nearly a decade.
Her relationship with coffee and herbal tea began in childhood. Jeter remembers sitting at the kitchen table with her maternal grandmother, who would have a mug of coffee or tea as part of her daily routine.
Her paternal great-grandmother also played an important role in shaping her relationship with herbs. She maintained a garden in Hueytown, growing vegetables and herbs and taught Jeter about their uses and benefits.
“I never knew that it was going to have anything to do with what I would do for a career,” Jeter said.
Her professional journey took several turns. She initially studied biology with plans to enter the medical field, then changed her major and eventually moved into supply chain management.
Those experiences, along with motherhood, entrepreneurship and the lessons passed down from her family, ultimately informed the work she does today.
At LaFleur, Jeter began with two coffee blends and herbal teas. Over time, she developed a proprietary coffee blend, which is now served at NOIR alongside her herbal tea blends.
The result is a café where both women’s businesses remain visible while contributing to a larger shared vision.
That vision extends well beyond the menu.
More Than a Café
For Jeter and Strayhorne, NOIR is designed to be a place where people can come together, exchange ideas and find community.
That vision is particularly evident in NOIR Society, an initiative centered around high achievers, entrepreneurs, creatives and nonprofit leaders.
The program includes a book club and gatherings featuring authors and community leaders whose work reflects the goals and challenges NOIR’s audience faces.
The women describe their approach simply: Take care of people while they take care of their business.
“We want to be a small hub for them to come in, to have a great bite to eat,” Strayhorne said. “You never know who you are running into when you’re there.”
The goal is to make information, relationships and networking more accessible in an environment where people feel comfortable enough to make connections and ask for what they need.
Jeter said that human connection is increasingly important in a digital world where people may not have as many opportunities to interact face-to-face.
“If NOIR is the space where that can happen, then I’m doing God’s will,” she said.
That same philosophy was evident in one of Jeter’s interactions with a young woman studying for the Alabama State Bar exam.
The woman regularly visited the café while studying and had begun doubting whether she would pass. Jeter encouraged her to keep coming to NOIR, even if she didn’t purchase anything, so they could talk through the process.
For Jeter, moments like that demonstrate what community can look like in practice.
It is not always about a transaction.
Sometimes, it is about having someone to talk to.
Black Label Brunch
That commitment to food, culture and connection was also on display during NOIR’s Black Label Brunch, an elevated culinary experience held Aug. 23.
The event transformed the café into a destination for Southern-inspired cuisine, curated music and intentional gathering.
Guests enjoyed a chef-curated buffet featuring dishes including roast and grits, chicken and waffle skewers, hot honey and lemon pepper wings, mini catfish nuggets, smothered cabbage wedges, sweet potato soufflé, collard green egg rolls with pepper jelly, peach cobbler shooters and bread pudding.
The experience also featured NOIR’s signature tea-blending bar, allowing guests to create and package their own loose-leaf tea blend from a selection of teas, herbs, botanicals, florals and dried fruits.
The brunch was a fitting reflection of what Jeter and Strayhorne are attempting to create at NOIR: an experience that feels elevated without losing the warmth of gathering around a table.
For Strayhorne, the decision to feature elevated soul food was also intentional.
With the closing of longtime Birmingham restaurant Jake’s Soul Food Café, she said she recognized an opportunity to provide something familiar to an area where those options can be limited.
“If we could just be the first to just come back and make sure that at least once a month, we give other people what they need, then we love to do that,” she said.
The Black Label Brunch is planned as a recurring experience, with brunches scheduled for the third Sunday of each month. Seating is intentionally limited to 50 guests.
Two Businesses, One Vision
If NOIR is the product of their partnership, the partnership itself may be one of its greatest strengths.
Strayhorne describes the women as “polar opposites,” but says their differences have allowed them to grow individually while strengthening the business.
She considers herself the workhorse — the planner and strategist — while Jeter is more naturally social, gentle and customer-service oriented.
“Tierra has grown me in those areas just by even being around her,” Strayhorne said.
Jeter sees the relationship similarly.
“I feel like she is the yin to my yang,” she said.
Although she has a business degree and experience of her own, Jeter said Strayhorne has helped her learn the practical side of operating a food service business, from managing inventory and employees to developing systems that keep the operation running.
Their partnership, they say, has allowed them to become more well-rounded individually.
“We’re equally committed to where our goal is,” Strayhorne said. “Everything we do just works because we feed off of each other.”
That collaboration also carries significance because of where NOIR is located. The café occupies space inside the Hoover Public Library, an area where the women say they are intentionally carving out room for representation and excellence. Jeter said being there is meaningful because the space was not always one she imagined being available to people who look like her.
“I feel like we are carving out space for us in that area,” she said. “I feel like we’re doing something that they have never seen.”
For Strayhorne, however, representation is only part of the responsibility.
She wants NOIR to be recognized for the quality of its food, service and overall experience.
“I love the fact that we’re Black and we’re women-owned,” she said. “But I also love the fact that we have an exceptional experience.”
She views the business as an opportunity to serve as a visual representation of what Black-owned, woman-owned excellence can look like.
“That is why we’ve made ourselves so accessible,” Strayhorne said. “We want to talk to you. We want to hear from you. We want to hear what it is that you need.”
Growing Beyond the Café
Although NOIR is still relatively young, Jeter and Strayhorne are already thinking beyond its walls.
The women plan to expand NOIR Society, launch a rewards program and introduce merchandise to make NOIR a recognizable presence throughout Birmingham and beyond the library.
They also see the café as a training ground for their employees.
One of Strayhorne’s proudest moments came when the women could step away from the café and see their team operate the business efficiently without them. For Jeter, that moment represented effective leadership and the development of a team capable of carrying the vision forward.
But the most meaningful measure of success is less tangible. It is the customer who finds encouragement while studying. The entrepreneur who makes a new connection over coffee. The community leader who finds a place to share knowledge.
The person who simply walks into NOIR looking for a good meal and leaves feeling like they found something more. That is the kind of space Jeter and Strayhorne are building together.
Two entrepreneurs who once knew each other mostly from afar are now partners, collaborators and, in Strayhorne’s words, something closer to sisters. Their businesses may have brought them to the same table, but it is their shared belief in community, connection and excellence that keeps them there.
NOIR Café is located inside Hoover Public Library at 200 Municipal Drive, Hoover, Alabama. Follow NOIR on Instagram @noirbham.
