Chasing Lions, San Francisco

 
11/30/2019




BACKGROUND
Chasing Lions Café, owned and founded by Keba Konte is located at the new City College of San Francisco MultiuseBuilding located on Phelan Avenue. The Chasing LionsCafé serves artisan roasted coffee, specialty drinks and serves fresh handmade soup, salads and sandwiches for the campus community in a diverse, creative and inspiring environment. The Multi-Use Building at CCSF has stringent “green” standards, and the use of reclaimed materials is mandatory. Aside from a top of the line, customized La Marzocco espresso machine and a few energy-efficient appliances, everything at the café is reclaimed.

CHALLENGES
Over a year ago, Keba Konte was attending bookkeeping classes at the SBDC when he heard Gabriela Sapp talking about the help that SBDC provided to entrepreneurs on access to capital. Keba immediately signed up to receive free counseling. He had just won a bid to operate a Caféout of CCSF main campus, competing against other businesses, including several coffee houses based in the Financial District. Keba was looking for capital to fund his new business venture. He also needed to formalize his business plan and financials to identify the total project cost.

ACTIONS
Keba was referred to the lead restaurant consultant to review his business model (concept, build-out, staffing, and menu options). Other SBDC Business Advisors were brought in to help with the business and financial plan completion as required by lenders. They helped him to put all the pieces together in the narrative of the business plan as well as the implementation strategy. They also helped him to build a five-year financial model to generate a worst case scenario and determine the capital needed as well as the breakeven point in terms of sales and customers. Once the business and financial projections were completed, Keba was referred to one more advisor, to work on sources of funding and loan application.

RESULTS
Keba Konte/Chasing Lions Café was able to raise $75,000 through a business loan and $30,000 with private investors. With this funding and his own injection of capital, Keba recently opened his Café at CCSF as well as hired 14 employees.

SOURCE: https://www.sfsbdc.org/story/563



Back To News



SBE Northeast
 


Louisiana Business JournalArchive