Danny Schwartzman: Community + Good Food Giant

I have been working as a grassroots organizer for political campaigns and non-profits and really enjoyed many aspects of what I was doing, but decided that I wanted to figure out how to connect the values I care about with a business.  As I was thinking about the kind of business I wanted to try to work for, the idea that had been sitting in the back of my head for many years to open up a cafe kept on coming back up.  During the following six months I sketched out the basic plan for a restaurant that would serve good food made from scratch with high quality local and organic ingredients, operate in an environmentally friendly way, serve as a community meeting place, and pay a living wage.  I met with about a 100 people to get feedback on the ideas and get help fleshing it out and in the summer of 2007 we opened the doors.

The most rewarding part has been meeting so many people who are working on all kinds of things and love the cafe -- we're lucky to have amazing regulars.  Pretty frequently I see people I don't know showing friends around the cafe and telling them about what we do with our garden and composting and such -- that's exceptionally rewarding.

The most challenging part is managing growth.  We only have one location, but since opening three years ago we've just about doubled in size, both in sales and number of staff.  Growth has been especially quick in our catering -- everything from large corporate events to weddings to simple office lunches.  It's an ongoing challenge to plan and manage growth when there is always a long list of things that need to be done immediately.

Learn more about  Common Roots Cafe and how Danny and his team are pushing the cafe concept forward here: www.commonroootscafe.com