Sopris Sun THE
VOLUME 1, NUMBER 35 • OCTOBER 8, 2009
Eco-Goddess stays open – with a little help from its friends By Terray Sylvester
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or the last nine months, the owners of Eco-Goddess Edibles have been scrambling to avoid a loan foreclosure that threatened to shutter the business. But last week, just three days before payment was due, they pulled together the remainder of the funds they needed. But they had to get creative to do so. Eco-Goddess faced a $94,000 mortgage payment due on Oct. 3. The bulk of that sum rolled in from one private loan on Sept. 30. But the Main Street restaurant’s owners drummed up about 15 percent of the payment over the course of the summer by encouraging their patrons to make up-front capital investments in the business. That’s a strategy that may seem more appropriate for a nonprofit, and Lisa Ruoff, who co-owns Eco-Goddess with her sister, Lynn, still seems a little surprised it worked as well as it did for the restaurant. “There was a little bit of magic in it,” she said of the money-raising effort.“I just got $94,000 handed to me. In the time frame it happened it was pretty amazing, because I thought we were gone. We were three days away from losing everything.” “The Seed-to-Table was only a certain percentage, but without it we wouldn’t have been able to [pay off the mortgage],” Ruoff said.“So really, our customers, that’s why we’re here, because our customers put the money up to make that happen.” In January, the Ruoffs attempted to refinance a mortgage on the building on Village Road where, until April, Eco-Goddess had been operating, Lisa Ruoff said. But she explained that by May, it was clear that they wouldn’t be able to meet the terms their bank, American National, had set for them. And if they defaulted on the loan, American National could have imposed a lien on the restaurant, said Ruoff. So Ruoff set up what she termed a “Seed-to-Table Investment Plan.” She asked customers for loans and offered to pay them back with meals. Interest on the loans came in the form of discounts, which were offered on a sliding scale – those who made larger loans will receive larger discounts off meals they eat in the restaurant. The idea came from one of Ruoff’s employees, who grew up in a restaurant and whose parents had used a similar strategy to preserve their business decades ago. However, such investing schemes have received national widespread attention in recent months, most notably through a book titled “Slow Money,” by Woody Tasch. To ensure that the business can support the trade, Ruoff stipulated that Seed-to-Table investors are allowed to eat only $200-worth of meals on their loan each month. “I’m just trusting that somehow in the future that money is not going to be needed and I can trade services,” she said. The program attracted about a dozen investors, and loans that ranged in size from $200 to $5,000. In a sense, Seed-to-Table participants are simply paying in advance for their meals, and were given an incentive to do so. But the investors themselves don’t see it that way. Carbondale resident Josh Smith said that he calculated how much he usually spends at EcoGoddess over a certain time period, and then invested slightly more, figuring his contribution was an investment in the larger community. “I try to support as much local business as I can because I understand that when you support local business that money stays in the community,” Smith said. Eco-Goddess serves only organic food, much of which is purchased locally. Smith and other investors said that fact as-
Lisa and Lynn (not pictured) Ruoff, co-owners of Eco-Goddess Edibles on Main Street, pulled together an innovative customer investment program to help stave off impending foreclosure. Photo by Lynn Burton sured them their contribution would circulate through other area businesses. “I am always enthusiastic to support local sustainable businesses, especially when they produce organic products,” said Renee Ramge, another Carbondale investor. “I think if we don’t support our own local businesses we’re going to find that they’re going to start disappearing.” And Ruoff agrees that ready money wasn’t the only ben-
efit the investment plan brought to the eatery. “Not only does [the plan] bring us money up front, but now every single one of those people is going to be bringing their friends in because they don’t want to see us go down,” Ruoff said. Of course, though the plan was working, it wasn’t a panacea. Ruoff did still need that large loan. “The response I got from the community was, it’s a great idea if you’re in dire straits – if there is no other way out – but just as a means to create capital… I don’t know that people would be so willing to support you that way.”