Business Spotlight: Starting from Scratch

Homemade meals, sweet pastries and family collaboration are the ingredients in Lola’s Pastries & Eatery LLC, owned by Robin and Dan Paulson.

“My whole life, my dream was to have my own restaurant,” says Robin Paulson. “We named it Lola’s after my grandmother, Lola Freeburg. Most of the recipes came from her. She instilled in me a love of food.”

Before working alongside her children and husband at the Nixa café and bakery, Paulson accrued 10 years of experience in food management at Opaa! Food Management Inc., a company that handles school food service. She now lives in Florida and commutes to Nixa about once a month, while Lola’s is managed by Karla Thrasher.

Tricks of the trade
While deciding where to open up shop in 2005, Paulson chose Nixa, where she lived at the time, because she says there were few restaurants that provided home-style cooking.

“Nixa needed a place that makes a nice, fresh meal,” she says. “We prepare almost everything from scratch, even our pie crusts.”

Running a successful family business has been challenging, Paulson says, but she was able to save money by starting with the basics.

Paulson shaved about $20,000 off her $150,000 restaurant startup tab by buying second-hand equipment such as a commercial refrigerator and freezer, as well as the dining room tables and chairs.

“The problem I see with a lot of people who start up restaurants is that they spend all their money on new equipment,” she says. “Then they don’t have the revenues to support it. We went to auctions to buy equipment.”

Lola’s building turned into labor of love as Paulson and family converted a residential home into a commercial property, which also meant receiving city rezoning approval.

“We had to work with existing neighbors to have it zoned commercial,” she says. “We gutted (the building) and did our own flooring. Our family worked side-by-side.”

Paulson and family knocked down walls, installed tile, built the patio and performed yard work, converting the 2,500-square-foot building into a 110-seat café. They also hired roofers, electricians and heating, ventilation and air conditioning professionals for the technical tasks.

New twists
Seven years later, Paulson credits the customer service and quality foods by her 26-member staff as the keys to keeping the doors open.

Open only during breakfast and lunch, Lola’s added Sunday hours this year, a move Paulson says has increased sales by 20 percent, enough to break its record annual revenues. Paulson declined to disclose revenue figures.

Thrasher, who has been managing the café since May, says some of the most popular menu items include the homemade soups and Lola’s strawberry cake.

“The store is consistent every day,” she says. “With catering, it just kind of depends on the time of year. The holidays are really busy. In the bakery, they are sometimes working 16 hours a day.”

Lola’s also has used new online advertising, Paulson says. She recently advertised through Groupon, offering customers a $10 breakfast coupon for $5 or a $16 lunch coupon for $8.

“Groupon told us we sold the most coupons in our division,” Paulson says. “We sold 996 total.”

While Groupon receives 50 percent of the coupon sales, Paulson says it’s worth it because of the new customers Lola’s gains. Thrasher says using e-mailed coupon deals such as Groupon and KY3’s Half-Off Deals has brought new and returning coupon-carrying customers to Lola’s.

“It’s been very effective,” she says. “With Groupon, (customers) can use their smartphones as well. It’s a new thing, but we are learning as we go.”

Thrasher says most locally owned bakeries support each other and aren’t enemy competitors.

Some niche bakeries in Springfield seem to agree supporting each other is important, says Sarah Sitz, manager and cake consultant at Amycakes, a two-year-old bakery in downtown Springfield.

“We don’t compare ourselves with other bakeries,” says Sitz, who admits she’s a fan of Lola’s strawberry cake. “As local bakeries, we don’t consider ourselves competitors. If we are completely booked, we will send people to other bakeries.”[[In-content Ad]]