Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Established: September 2006
Sold: November 2011
Employees: 15-20

Update: After five years owning and operating Cafe Shell, Shelley sold the cafe to a local couple.

Restaurant in the heart of downtown Santa Barbara delivering a hospitable experience including breakfast and special events, with a focus on a leisurely lunch.

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At thirty-five, just one month after starting the WEV Self-Employment Training program, Shelley bought the eighteen year old Barcliff & Bair restaurant on State Street in downtown Santa Barbara. All 15 employees (and five seasonal employees) stayed with Shelley through the change. She has recently been approached to expand Café Shell into Orange County, Pasadena, and the wine country of San Luis Obispo.

Shelley had been involved in the food industry all her life, growing up helping out - then creating wedding cakes - for her parents’ restaurant. After attending business school, at her family’s advice, she worked in the baking industry for 10 years to gain experience before deciding to buy and run her own business. She includes her young daughter as much as she can in Café Shell, remembering the joy of being part of her parents’ restaurant from a young age.

Shelley continues to be closely involved with WEV by hosting events and offering discounts and direct financial support. She even sent her general manager, Tony Miguel, through the Self Employment Training course to acquire more experience and leadership to help take Café Shell to the next level.

What prompted you to go into business for yourself?
My whole life I’d been doing sugar cookies for the Kentucky Derby when I was in college, wedding cakes for my parents’ restaurant growing up. I’d always been an entrepreneur but my family felt that I should first go to business school, though I’d always wanted to go to cooking school. When I graduated I worked for about ten years at my dad’s recommendation before I bought my own business, so I could learn all about the highs and lows and not be discouraged right out of the gate. So at thirty-five, I decided I wanted to do it for myself in this specific community, in some hospitality capacity.

What has been your biggest business challenge?
My biggest business challenge has been something that I’ve not conquered yet but I roll with it - the seasonality of a restaurant that has seventy outdoor seats. Although we have only two weeks of bad weather in Santa Barbara, at times we have high winds, fires, seasonal activities that close the street off and cool weather times where our tried and true regulars would like to sit inside. I have just about forty seats maximum inside. So the biggest challenge has been understanding what my season is. In the baking business that I was always in, there was always that last season, the last three months of the year:

Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Christmas. But in this climate of a Santa Barbara downtown café, it’s six months of really busy, and it can be half as much in the other half of the year. There is the challenge of how to manage the cash flow.

What has been your biggest business success?
I’m really proud to be in the third year of a restaurant business in Santa Barbara. My biggest accomplishment is saying “I’m still here.” Because of the recession and economic setback, neighboring businesses on my block are coming and going right and left. I feel like some of the trying times have caused some of us, my neighbors included, to be innovative and help each other out.

Who is your ideal customer?
I just want somebody that understands what we’re about, nothing’s in a hurry, we’re not in a hurry, we don’t want you to be. It’s not a diner, it’s not fine dining, and it’s just casual, outdoor, al fresco seating. There’s no socio-economic or age demographic, all my customers all important. From the toddlers, to the elderly, to the working person, downtown shopper or tourist. Someone that just wants the experience of a leisurely kind of European café experience. It’s where you might see the same people here for ten years, they might know your name, but I just want you to be comfortable and enjoy the parade, or your eggs Benedict, a mimosa, and just take your time.

What has been the biggest surprise about owning your own business?
The biggest surprise about owning my own business is that I so enjoy being an owner in my mid-thirties. When I was in my mid-twenties, I was managing a team, which was really hard as I had no point of reference or long-term experience on how to do it. I grew up in restaurants with my parents, but working for your family is not the same as owning your own. So my biggest surprise is just how much I enjoy the collaboration when we’re super busy, I have a handful of twenty year olds, and a handful of forty year olds, I’m in the middle and I feel like it’s a good balance. The busier it is, the more fun it is for all of us.

How do you juggle all the pieces of your life?
I don’t really have hard lines about when I’m at work and when I’m at home. My work life and my personal life, they’re just all kind of what I love to do. I incorporate volunteerism into the business now.  I host WEV events, I fundraise for the Santa Barbara City College Cooking School, I’ve had Life Chronicles here. I welcome many nonprofits to use the facility at a great discount and we’re doing the Choice Affairs event. I incorporate what I love, party planning, since I have a space for that now, and volunteerism. My managers help out with my daughter, and I ask for a lot of help. I need a couple days off for the week, and in the summer, a few days off for the month. And I don’t work nights, so it’s really easy to just go full-out when I’m here from noon to five, and know I’m only here two to five nights a week for events. So that’s been a good balance for the first three years.

What advice do you offer to other women that want to start their own company?
If I were to advise someone starting their own new company, I would definitely recommend that if you don’t have a business background, or if it’s been more than a few years since college, do take WEV’s Self Employment Training. It’s in the community, it’s one night a week for fourteen weeks. I would say to brush up on your people skills because you just can’t have too many friends in this town. You don’t have to join every committee and board, and chair everything, but be open to all the people that you meet through WEV. Mix, mingle, network, tell people what you’re passionate about. And you’ll meet the people that are going to meet you where you are and to help you make it happen.

How did WEV help you achieve your goals and your dreams?
WEV has helped me to achieve my new goal  - WEV is here to help us stay in business, not just start a business. So, WEV has helped me by collaborating with me, just like I do with my team. And by connecting me with local business people. That really helps. They come in for brunches, board interviews and photo shoots. WEV just helped me know that it was all possible. It wasn’t a negative “what’s wrong” or “why it won’t work” -  it was just over and over, “this is why it will work” and the group dynamic was really great.

The thing that WEV has done that’s really helpful is the continuing education within its own brand, that it’s tailor made for the small business entrepreneur that needs some business coaching, because you can get a little down if your neighbors are going out of business, and your industry, the food business is in challenging times.  WEV is there to say “oh, if you’re in special events, we do special events, how can we collaborate?” So since I’ve left that May graduation in 2006 (where I was honored to speak – facing one of my greatest fears), I have never felt like that was the end of WEV. I’ve met the incoming staff, the outgoing staff, as they’ve grow in into their next steps and I look forward to doing those seminars and their new website and more fundraising with them.

Is there something that you learned from WEV that you use everyday?
The statement, “You can never have too many friends” came from a friend that went through WEV, and she was going to every local business saying  “welcome” and “how could my product meet your product or service and collaborate?” It’s a small town, a small city, and then there’s the neighborhood that you live in. And I would just say that WEV stays in that spirit of reconnecting, learning it again, honing it again. It’s not just your diploma and then you leave. WEV is there for you for consulting, and every day I think of something else they might be able to support my business in and I’m checking those things out.

What does success mean to you?
I think that success is sharing what I’m enjoying with other people and getting them excited about their passions too. To make everybody a part of that prosperity and profit sharing and excitement and be open with them. I really enjoy sharing free dessert with customers, guests, giving people a great deal on an event because they thought it was an unaffordable idea and we could both walk away with something that we’re happy to do together.

What is the biggest reward you get from your business?
I love the people part of it. Five-thousand people come through the restaurant every month and they could be a movie star from L.A., which is often, or somebody that was in my WEV class that remembers what I brought to my show-and-tell day, our tried and true regulars, the bankers, my business neighbors… I just enjoy that small town connection with seeing the regulars and seeing my team here. That’s what takes me into all the fun party planning, new menu items, and community involvement.

And, to keep doing this and incorporating my daughter into hospitality the way I was raised in it. Whether it’s scooping the butters or serving in the buffet or handing out balloons on Saturdays, that this could just keep weaving into my total experience.

Photography courtesy of Meghan Nicole Photography: www.meghannicolephotography.com