The first cohort, for which Banzo and Bonnie’s Balls are part, met for the first time in an online seminar Jan. 15, and includes fellow establishments from Milwaukee, New York state and California. The agriculture and processing cohorts are accepting applications until Jan. 30. The second food and beverage cohort participants have not yet been announced.
The institute started with a financial management boot camp, and will transition to weekly coaching calls and meetings that touch on expert topics like outsourcing, building projects, food safety, law and money. It is set to end with a pitching event, as well as a public celebration, on June 16.
Amid the health crisis, the biggest takeaway Rostowfske hopes the establishments derive is resiliency and “organizing your own chaos.” There’s an opportunity for restaurants in particular to grow beyond their “footprints,” and trying something new, he said.
Hopes for expansion
“When you have something no one else has, you run with it,” Raimy said of founding and expanding Bonnie’s Balls, for which she is the only current employee.
Raimy applied for the Food Finance Institute after some close restaurant industry friends informed her of the affair. Now she intends to take “every opportunity this program provides.”
