02: How to Save Your Restaurant From the Brink of Failure | Laurie Thomas, Rose's Cafe, Terzo, GGRA

Laurie Thomas is the Executive Director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, and the Owner of Rose’s Café and Terzo in San Francisco. In this interview Laurie shares her journey from working in marketing for a tech company in Silicon Valley to becoming an investor in a restaurant group in San Francisco, and ultimately transitioning to running the business full-time as she was tasked with turning the company around from the brink of failure.

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Where to find Laurie Thomas:

• Website: https://ggra.org/, https://rosescafesf.com/, https://terzosf.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ggrasf/?hl=en, https://www.instagram.com/rosescafesf/, https://www.instagram.com/terzosf/ 
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ggrasf, https://twitter.com/rosescafesf, https://twitter.com/TerzoSF 
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/287952471075, https://www.facebook.com/rosescafesf/, https://www.facebook.com/terzosf 

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Where to find Laurie:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurie-thomas-91a724/ 

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Where to find Bryan:

• Website: https://www.myfirstrestaurant.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryan-tublin-03548910/
• Twitter: @btublin 

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Where to find Kitava:

• Website: https://www.kitava.com/
• Instagram: @kitavakitchen

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Referenced:

• Lulu
• Rose Pistola
• Rose’s Cafe
• Terzo
• Hamano Sushi
• Don Julio 1942 Tequila

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In this episode, we cover:

• (01:40) How Laurie first got involved in restaurants as an investor
• (04:53) The structure of Laurie’s first restaurant investment in Rose Pistola in 1995
• (5:44) How Laurie and her partners incorporated their company, Nice Ventures 
• (06:46) How investors such as Laurie received distribution payments from their investment
• (09:16) Laurie’s journey from working in tech to restaurant operations
• (10:12) When Nice Ventures began expanding beyond Rose Pistola, “a little too fast” according to Laurie
• (11:17) The beginning of the collapse of Nice Ventures’ businesses
• (12:30) When “the music stopped” and Laurie’s company had to file a pre-emptive Chapter 11
• (14:25) The benefits of Chapter 11 for a struggling business
• (16:45) The risks of growing too fast, and the importance of knowing how you’re going to fund each expansion
• (18:15) What to do after filing Chapter 11 in order to clean up the business and rebuild
• (21:30) When Laurie got the business back on solid footing again
• (22:58) The decision to expand again to open Terzo across the street from Rose’s Cafe
• (24:08) The concept of Terzo, and the ga