FSR December 2022

Perspectives

industry. And when I went to culi nary training, I was training in a kitchen with all men. I tried to be tougher, and I definitely blockedmy femininity. When I moved to L.A. 22 years ago, I was a young 22-year old female chef; I had to become pretty fierce to try to get people to listen to me. I also felt like the way people spoke to each other could be brutal and toxic and inappropri ate and degrading. So finally, when I opened up Source Collab and sur roundedmyself with these beautiful women, it allowed me to step back into my power. BH: inking about it from the legal, business, and fundraising side, I do think there are challenges being a woman and people taking you seri ously, especially in the restaurant com munity. I had the same thing when I was in the technology world. Having a woman show up to talk to the CFO of a Fortune 500 company and tell them all these issues, I was never taken seriously. Coming into this, I get it. I do think peo ple really want to support female-owned businesses, and we’ve seen that support from a lot of our community and our investors and that’s awesome, but it def initely was a challenge for us. We live in a community where there might be one other female chef; it’s a very male-dom inated community. What’s next for Source Collab? AC: Sweetrise is our cake program that’s coming out; it’s been a two-year project. We have two restaurants right now, but I see us expanding into wholesale. I would love to see one of our products in Ere whon Market or Whole Foods. It’s been a mission. We’re starting to ship in the next quarter—nationwide is our goal— our pre-packaged cookie mixes, bread mixes, pancake mixes, and breads. We’re always open to the next little Source Café somewhere. We have so many things we could do; we could open up a little juice bar, we could open up a bakery or a bone broth bar. We’re always open to see what we can plant ourselves to continue to make differences.

WITH ITS SECOND CONCEPT, NINE24 KITCHEN, SOURCE COLLAB ELEVATED THE MOOD AND MENU.

How do your skills complement each other? BH: It was kind of a match made in heaven because all of us all do such different things and have such different strengths. It works really well. Cindy does a lot of the back-end operations and baking. Amber works with the people, the creative part of it, and running

WONHO FRANK LEE / HAILEE REPKO

Nine24 Kitchen, and that’s when the Source Collab started to form because we have two restaurants and a commis sary kitchen where we do all of our bak ing and some retail and wholesale. BETH HANNEMANN: I worked in foren sic accounting and litigation consult ing and was a big data and finance geek. I had my own health challenges and a family member who was very sick, and I realized the corporate world was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. So, I quit work and spent a couple of years doing other things. Amber and I actually met on the patio of the Source Café; I had a puppy withme, and she had a dog about two weeks younger. We ended up becoming really good friends. I slowly started helping with some busi ness plans and doing consulting for them, and realized I really loved doing it. I wanted to spend more time helping expand the business from the legal, real estate, and financial side.

the restaurant. I work on the back-end finance and business side of it. at’s kind of where we all love playing. I think all of us have such strong skill sets we can rely on and trust each other to know these areas of the business so it doesn’t feel like we’re stretching ourselves. AC: I was stretching myself before Beth and Cindy came on. I was trying to do all the things, and I couldn’t do it all 100 percent. Now, I stay in my lane with creating and uplifting and educating and inspiring. at’s my lane; Cindy has hers and Beth has hers. Honestly, when we start to cross over into each other’s lanes, we know somebody’s overworking. at’s how we also maintain our balance with each other. What is it like leading a woman run business compared to your previous work experiences? AC: I grew up in the restaurant business since I was 15—it’s a male-dominated

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DECEMBER 2022