Discover the 2023-2024 Restaurant Small Business Management Program:
Stop simply working in your business, and start working on your business!
Restaurant Small Business Management
Location: Lincoln City + Zoom
About our Program
The Restaurant Small Business Management Program is entirely new for the 2023-24 year. It features Oregon experts with deep roots in the restaurant industry. The program has been engineered from the ground up to deliver relevant, robust content specifically to Lincoln County restaurateurs. Nine powerful workshops, plus monthly one-on-one advising sessions — all geared to make your operation as successful as possible, and to make your work more enjoyable and rewarding.
2023 Class Schedule
The program will include expert speakers from across the country – as well as from right here in Lincoln County – covering all topics of restaurant ownership and management. Adding to that, you will be part of a strong local cohort that will allow for peer sharing and learning while working directly on your business development.
<< Click Here to Apply Now >>
October 9, 2023, SESSION 1
Attracting & Managing Employees
Instructor: Lisa Schroeder, Executive Chef & Owner, Mother’s Bistro & Bar
About Lisa
Mother’s Bistro owner awarded Oregon Small Business Person of the Year
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has named Lisa Schroeder, owner and executive chef of downtown restaurant Mother’s Bistro & Bar, Oregon Small Business Person of the Year for 2023. The accolade was a part of National Small Business Week, which runs from April 30 through May 6. Schroeder received a loan from the SBA to open Mother’s Bistro in 2000, KGW’s Luisa Anderson reports. The restaurant also received funding from SBA’s COVID relief programs, which helped it stay in business. On May 1, Schroeder and other award recipients went to the White House and met President Biden and Vice President Harris. Mayor Wheeler presented the award to Schroeder at her restaurant on Wednesday.
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/archive/interview/lisa-schroeder/
November 13, 2023, SESSION 2
Basic bookkeeping and financial statements.
Instructor: Josiah Dean, SBDC Advisor, Instructor, and owner of The Balch Hotel
December 11, 2023, SESSION 3
Managing Your Money for Sustainable Profits
January 8, 2024, SESSION 4
Branding & Marketing Your Restaurant
Instructor: Jim Beriault, Rocket Glow PDX. or Tselani Richmond, SYSCO
February 12, 2024, SESSION 5
Revising Menus to Attract Customers (tourists & locals) & Controlling Food Costs through High & Low Seasons
Developing & Testing Recipes for Consistency, Profitability and Customer Satisfaction
Instructors: Kurt Huffman, Owner, ChefStable
& Cory Schreiber, Consulting Chef at Sysco, author, and founder of Wildwood
About Kurt
Kurt Huffman got his first taste of the restaurant industry as a 10-year-old in a school cooking class in New Zealand. Four years later, he was working as a dishwasher and grill cook at Fat City Café in Multnomah Village. He went on to study at UC Berkeley, but at 25 he found himself in Scotland, balancing rugby and a good amount of beer drinking while pursuing a master’s degree in law from the University of Glasgow. He had beer in mind when a French friend asked him to collaborate on a business in Lyon, France. They settled on a brewery, “because it’s such an obvious thing to do at 25,” which turned into a gastropub called Ninkasi. By the time Kurt left France, there were five locations.
He returned to his hometown of Portland and founded ChefStable in 2008. It began with Chef Andy Ricker who had just started Pok Pok in 2006 and was looking to open another restaurant. Huffman and Ricker teamed up and opened Ping. After that, recommendations for partnerships kept coming in and Kurt built his team to be able to design, build, and operate restaurants. Since 2008, Kurt and his team at ChefStable have opened more than 40 restaurants and he personally has taken more trips to Portland Nursery than anyone could count. He is a firm believer in the power of partnering with the right people and can’t shake the feeling that every space should have more plants.
About Cory
Cory Schreiber, an Oregonian raised in a family seafood restaurant, started Wildwood Restaurant in 1994. “He won the James Beard Award in 1998 for Best Chef Pacific Northwest and Wildwood was inducted into the Nation’s Restaurant News Fine Dining Hall of Fame in Chicago in 2003”. Cory closed the restaurant in 2014.
Cory is the author of two cookbooks: Wildwood: Cooking from the Source in the Pacific Northwest (Ten Speed Press, 2000) and Rustic Fruit Desserts (Ten Speed Press, 2009, co-authored by Julie Richardson).
“Currently, Cory is a chef consultant for Sysco, the nation’s largest foodservice marketer and distributor. Whether cooking in the kitchen or meeting up with producers in the field, Cory is excited to have the opportunity to affect change by working for a company committed to conducting their business sustainably, especially in the areas of food, co-operations and community.” https://kimberleywinevinegars.com/chef/cory-schreiber/
March 11, 2024 SESSION 6
Bar Management
Presented by two guest speakers (Including Paul Stevens, former owner of the Night Light Lounge)
About Paul
Paul Stevens, former owner of Pablito’s Taqueria in Friday Harbor and the Night Light Lounge in Portland (2017 – 2020)
April 8, 2024 SESSION 7
Local Sourcing & Sustainability
Instructor: Laura Anderson, founder, Local Ocean
About Laura
In 2002 Laura founded Local Ocean Seafoods, a sustainability-focused seafood restaurant and fish market in Newport, Oregon. After 20 years of tremendous growth and continuous change, she sold the company into employee ownership, as an Oregon Stewardship Trust. In 2022, she launched the Yaquina Lab, a food hub that provides shared space and equipment for small fishing and ocean-minded businesses. She also started the Central Coast Food Web, a nonprofit with the purpose of improving access to local foods, capturing and retaining seafood economic value, increasing ocean literacy and supporting climate friendly food solutions.
She has lived and worked in coastal communities her whole life, from her Washington commercial fishing family roots to her service as a Peace Corps volunteer in The Philippines. While earning a master’s degree in Marine Resource Management (Oregon State University 2000), she fished summers for King salmon and Dungeness crab on the family boat. She has been actively engaged in fisheries science and policy throughout Oregon and the region. She is the board chair of the Oregon Ocean Science Trust, a trustee for the Oregon chapter of The Nature Conservancy, a board member of the Oregon Coast Aquarium and has served on the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife commission (2010-2016). When beach life becomes too damp and mossy, she and her husband like to escape to the deep desert reaches of Joshua Tree and the Wild West.
May 13, 2024 SESSION 8
Essential Digital Marketing — Website, Emails, & Social Media
Instructor: Jen McFarland, Jen McFarland Consulting
June 10, 2024 SESSION 9
Part 1: Commercial Leases & How to Renew Them
Instructor: Levi Johnston, Attorney, on Negotiating & Renewing a Lease. (Levi’s family operated a restaurant in Bandon.)
Part 2: Financing Options, Managing Debt, and Exit Strategies
Instructors: Bruce Melzer, Oregon SBDC’s Capital Access Team
Arnie Hendricks – Financial Management Resources
July 8, 2024 SESSION 10
Graduation/Celebration, TBD
