The restaurant industry offers ownership opportunities to people of all backgrounds. Even during the recent years of challenging economic times, women-owned and minority-owned restaurant businesses have grown at rates well above their colleagues; in the overall economy.
Ladies Start Your Restaurants!
The restaurant industry offers a path to entrepreneurship that no other industry can match.
In 2017, CNBC said that “the Golden Age for woman entrepreneurs has begun.”
Fact-Women now make up 40% of all new entrepreneurs in the U.S., the highest percentage since 1996!
“The status quo is teetering. A tide of women chefs is rising, en masse, to the top of their field and changing conventional restaurant culture,” says Vogue’s Tamar Adler who recently noted in a piece about such kitchens, run by all women.
Chef Callie Speer owner of Holy Roller all-day diner in Austin and has an all women kitchen and front of the house staff.
“There’s this misconception that women in the kitchen are more emotional, but that’s not the case. If anything, there’s less screaming than you would imagine in high-stress environments, there’s a feeling of camaraderie. I look forward to seeing these girls every day.” says Speers.
They never really brag about being an all run woman restaurant, they prefer to simply be known as a team who’s making good food and having a good time doing it.
Yes being a chef and or a restaurateur owner is demanding, between the long hours, constant responsibilities, tuff margins, and stress, let alone the physical aspects of the job, that has no bearing on whether it is a woman or man taking it on. If anything, I do believe women have it a bit harder! Let’s face since we have to continually prove they not only can we do the job, but we must do it a lot better than a man just to be considered equal.
Regardless of the fabricated stories and wise tails concerning women-owned businesses, there is no better time in history for women to own a restaurant.
Though it may seem like a man’s world, women entrepreneurs are making their mark and changing the restaurant ownership scene.
I had worked in different restaurant concepts for over seven years before deciding on the one that best matched my experience and passion. During the seven years of working for other restaurant and catering businesses, I surrounded myself with successful professional women and men in the restaurant industry. They collectively helped me gain the confidence and experience that gave me the courage to become an entrepreneur. They made it possible for me to believe in myself to start and run a woman-owned restaurant.
It wasn’t until my first businesses, Josie’s Delicatessen and Catering in 1988 that I learned what it would take to start and run a restaurant. It didn’t matter whether I was a woman or a man starting a business is no easy undertaking.
It was during that time I became a student of the school of “hard knocks!”
I taught myself how to start and run a food business the hard way, which included harsh lessons and situations I never experienced before while I was working for others. Starting a restaurant was something I had never done before. There may be some similarities to managing and running one, but neither is the same as owning one. Yes, I had developed the skills of a chef, able to run a kitchen staff, order and cost out food purchases and menu items but that’s just part of starting and owning a restaurant. There is much more that must be done way before you even open your doors to the first customer.
I will save you from the stories and the stress I went through during the two years I owned Josie’s! Let’s say I made it through, I survived and was able to attain more experience and knowledge that helped me open and run other food industry businesses, a small retail business, and a multimedia corporation.
Today I’m excited to share with others what I did to become a successful entrepreneur and look forward to helping others do the same especially women because if I can do it so can YOU!!!
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