Unusual Opportunity for Brookline Restaurants! 🍱🍜🎂

Calling Brookline Restaurants!

Please inform your restaurant neighbors.

9/29/2022

Resources, Solutions, Community

Brookline Chamber of Commerce

and SOL Restaurant Consulting Present:

Today's Special: Restaurant Revitalization!

Fun

Apply here!

What is Restaurant Revitalization?

The Restaurant Re Seminar is a unique, 12-week restaurant management "crash course" presented by the Brookline Chamber of Commerce in partnership with SOL Restaurant Consulting.

Our goal is to empower 15 Brookline independent restaurants to grow into more equitable, sustainable, and resilient businesses.

This program is no cost to Brookline independent restaurant owners.

The group of 15 will be split into three cohorts based on financial status and level of business literacy. The program consists of regular full-group workshops as well as one-one-one coaching customized to the needs of each restaurant.

The Restaurant Intensive Seminar addresses the current challenges small restaurants face today, focusing on:

financial analysis
financial literacy
controlling and managing COGS and labor.

The goal is to support restaurant owners to understand your numbers, make savvy and data-driven decisions about labor, menu design, and operations to strengthen your business for the current moment, and to help you be prepared to make effective decisions as the conditions of running a restaurant continue to change each year.

This program incorporates weekly group seminars in addition to weekly 1:1 support from a consultant for the entire 12 weeks of the program.

Through this high-touch program, participating restaurants are supported to learn content in the group seminars and implement through time with a consultant and with your team.

The weekly group seminar time allows for peer problem solving between participants – often an invaluable aspect of the cohort-style program.

The Restaurant Intensive Seminar launched in 2018 to support small restaurant owners and managers. The program has been delivered several times serving dozens of restaurants in the Greater Boston Area. As restaurants come back from the devastating interruption of life, community, and business that COVID has wrought, we are proud to bring you the Restaurant Revitalization Program - tailored to the needs and specific challenges for Brookline restaurants.

Program Outline

Module 1

Financial Diagnostic of each business

Standard introduction to business

Analyzing and Interpreting financial statements

Module 2

Profitable Menu Design

Costing out Recipes

Star-Dog Analysis

COGS Management

Module 3

Streamlining Operations

Recruiting & Hiring

Onboarding & Training

Labor Management

Timing

Workshops will be scheduled for 12 weeks on Mondays, time to TBA depending on feedback from restaurant representatives at the Information Sessions, beginning February 6th, ending on April 24th.

Information Sessions

Monday, October 17th, 9:00 am - Register here.

Monday, October 24th, 3:00 pm - Register here.

Application Deadline

Monday, November 7th

Start Date

Monday, February, 6th

Instructors

Marisol Lazo-Flores

With over a decade of hospitality experience, Marisol is passionate about the future of restaurants. As a GM, she led store openings and managed multiple teams through major transitions, executing extensive training programs. As the child of Mexican and El Salvadorian immigrants, Marisol is driven to create an equitable and inclusive restaurant industry for all workers.

She is a Learning and Development specialist and has spearheaded successful training programs since 2017, including bilingual programming. Marisol designed and conducts the Restaurant Management Program, a one-of-a-kind survey course in restaurant management for owners and managers that not only delivers key content, but also fosters new relationships among the cohort members.

Marisol holds Masters Degrees in both Business Administration and International Marketing from Hult International Business School in London. She recently worked on the Digital Optimization Program in collaboration with the Lawrence Partnership and designed and executed the Resiliency Restaurant Initiative in partnership with Commonwealth Kitchen.

Marisol is currently the Managing Director of the Main Streets Phoenix Project and serves on the Board of Democracy Brewing located in Boston.

Roz Freeman

Roz has spent her career working with small food businesses. For 8 years she worked with CommonWealth Kitchen (CWK), a food business incubator in Boston, supporting more than 150 emerging food businesses and developing a wealth of workshops, trainings, and resources to support business launch and growth.

Roz developed and launched CommonWealth Kitchen's signature Food Biz 101 13-week series and led CWK’s programming for growth-stage food businesses — strengthening and expanding their restaurants and product companies. During the COVID pandemic, through CommonWealth Kitchen and a partnership with the City of Boston, Roz supported local restaurants owned by people of color in Boston to produce emergency food for community centers around the city.

With the increased need for small restaurant support at this time, Roz created CWK's first Restaurant Resiliency Program, diving in deep with 8 Boston-based POC-owned restaurants. Roz is now opening a kitchen+cafe, grocery store, and butchery in Boston, MA and consulting with restaurant and food business owners.

Testimonials from Restaurant Participants

Margaret, Boston - I loved every minute of the program because it allowed me to see that I had the tools but didn’t know how to use them. I could really become a successful entity using what I’ve learned here. As minority owners, it’s very intimidating to go out there and push your food and promote your business and also to create the alliances and community. You think you’re an island and you have to protect your business at all costs, but the truth is there are a lot of people who can help. I loved all the topics, COGS. I would advise another restaurant owner to take this SERIOUSLY. This program is life altering if you take it seriously.

Valroyce, Dorchester - Greatest takeaway for me was getting to know the different restaurant owners. The part of this that made it fun for me was the sense of camaraderie, we’re all in this boat together. You get to get different perspectives and you can change the way you do something based on someone else offering help or sharing a different approach. The numbers don’t lie! I enjoyed learning and being surprised by the numbers.

Space is limited.