Fields of dreams
CN&R’s annual Entrepreneur Issue celebrates success, from retail to farming
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ver thought of starting up your own business, be it a restaurant, a home bakery or a small farm? Well, you’re not alone. But finding success is based on more than just a little know-how. That’s why, for our annual Entrepreneur Issue, the CN&R decided to sit down with a handful of local business people who’ve proven themselves up to the task. In the following pages, you’ll find stories about a local bar owner/ restaurateur with three successful downtown businesses—and one in the works; a startup home-based cookie shop where decorations range from unicorns to eyeglasses; a flower farm where beauty and eco-friendliness are key; a tech guru whose latest e-commerce endeavor includes a component that tackles crushing student debt; the owner of a comic book store that’s stood strong for 26 years despite the wrath of Amazon; and a nonprofit arts organization that’s become a cultural hub in Chico. Entrepreneurs are the dreamers among us. Whether their visions are big or small, these folks have turned them into reality. We hope you’re inspired by their stories.
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CN&R
JUNE 20, 2019
Downtown dynamo Bar owner/restaurateur Will Brady talks about travel, Guy Fieri and being mean
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ill Brady started working in restaurants—even if they were of the fast-food variety—at the age of 13. So, after he “failed out of college,” where he was seeking a degree in philosophy and the classics, the fallback was to find work in kitchens. Who could have predicted that work would pay such dividends? Today, at 46 years old, Brady owns three of downtown Chico’s most bustling spots for food and drinks: The Banshee, B Street Public House and, the latest, Bill’s Towne Lounge. In fact, when Food Network star Guy Fieri brought his show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives to town a few months ago, one of his stops was to The Banshee, where Brady made a couple of the house favorites: the Pho-Rench Dip Sandwich and Bahn Mi Tacos. “He was very down-to-earth off-camera,” Brady said of Fieri. “We had drinks for a couple of hours one of the nights— he’s very likable.” The path from McDonald’s to “Triple-D”—Fieri speak for his show—was far from straight, however. Brady moved back and forth from his hometown of Boston to places like Los Angeles, Chicago and even Dublin, Ireland. At first, he gained experience working in restaurants—under a number of James Beard Award winners, including Ed LaDue, who created the first pizza menus at California Pizza Kitchen and Wolfgang Puck’s Spago in L.A.
response was immense—the place is reguThen he started getting hired to help larly full of patrons. It was so successful, restaurateurs launch their own menus, in fact, that Brady’s initial plan was to spending three months here, three months open a string of Banshees across Northern there, working for room and board and California. He had no intention of stayenough cash to get him to the next place. ing in Chico over a decade. Something When he finally was ready to settle down, about the other communities he’d eyed he went back home and opened an Irish for Banshee 2 or Banshee 3, however, just pub in Boston that was more pub than resdidn’t jibe with him. taurant. Ultimately, though, “I got tired of “I decided to stick with Chico. Being breaking up fights,” he said. present calmed me,” he said. So, almost on a whim, he folSo, instead of multiple Banshees, lowed one of his regular Brady set out to create something customers—Sebastian Brady’s pro tip: different. A lengthy, frustratTamarelle—to Chico, Know what you’re doing, whether it be ing battle over obtaining a and they opened The front of house or back of house. Don’t liquor license for his second Banshee together in try to do everything and assume you business—just around the 2007. know how to run a restaurant because you’ve eaten at restaurants. corner from The Banshee “I basically The Banshee: 134 W. Second St., 895-9670 on Broadway—was infudid what I did in B Street Public House: 117 Broadway St., riating, but eventually he, Boston, here,” 899-8203 Tamarelle and another partBrady said. The Bill’s Towne Lounge: 135 Main St., 487-7031