WE Connect Event | How to Open a Food Business in NYC

By Women Entrepreneurs NYC (WE NYC) is an initiative of the NYC Department of Small Business Services

Sep 9  |  Business

Is your dream to open a restaurant or food business in New York City? WE NYC invites you to our next event in the Storefront Series! SoHo Business

During this event, you will learn key tips on how to open a food business from experts at ConEdison, NYC’s Small Business Advocates, and successful food business owners Deepti Sharma, Founder and CEO of FoodtoEat, Carolina Santos-Neves, Chef and Founder of Call Me Caro, Anita Shepherd, Founder of Anita’s Coconut Yogurt, Christina Guidera, Founder of King Street Baking Co, and Dawn Kelly, Co-founder of The Nourish Spot! Continental Breakfast will be provided on a first come first served basis.

At the end of this event, you will know :

• Basic considerations to keep in mind when opening a physical space
• Best practices on saving energy and money
• Free resources provided by Small Business Advocates

About the speakers

Deepti Sharma is the CEO and Founder of FoodtoEat, an online marketplace where local businesses can order team meals from the best local restaurants, food trucks and caterers. Her goal is to help businesses feed employees great food and build stronger work cultures, while also helping local mom & pop food vendors – many of whom are immigrants – use technology to build sustainable catering businesses. For this work, she was honored in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2013. Deepti also cofounded the Mountaintop Program, an initiative that brings innovators and entrepreneurs into New York City schools to mentor and inspire K-12 students.

Carolina Santos-Neves is the founder of Call Me Caro, is a Brazilian-American chef, food & beverage consultant, writer and brand ambassador. She spends every day meeting someone new, creating a new connection, seeking inspiration and overcoming challenges. After graduating from Brown University with a B.A. in European history, Carolina worked as an editor at Epicurious.com for a total of 5 years and simultaneously earned a degree from the Chef’s Training Program at the Natural Gourmet Institute. She first entered the restaurant world as the co-founder of Comodo in 2012.

Christina Guidera is the Founder and CEO of King Street Baking Co, a wholesale bakery that supplies baked goods to over 50 coffee shops around New York City. The company also runs a seasonal booth at Smorgasburg, ships nationwide on Goldbelly, and caters events of every size. Christina started King Street Baking Co in 2016 after her tenure at Eleven Madison Park where she worked in Pastry. The company was founded to fill the gap in the market for nostalgic treats that are high end, made with the freshest and best ingredients, and presented with a fine-dining touch.

Anita Shepherd founded Anita’s Yogurt in 2013 after searching high and low for additive free coconut milk yogurt. Six years later, the product is available in two regions of Whole Foods, and a total of 250 East Coast retailers. The product is shipped Nationwide via mylkguys.com. Anita and the yogurt have been featured in Bon Appetit, W Magazine, the Dr. Oz Show and Good Morning America. In 2017 Anita was selected as one of ten Tory Burch Fellows. The company is certified woman and minority owned.

Dawn Kelly is the Founder and CEO of The Nourish Spot Inc. a MWBE certified healthy food & beverage haven that offers customers the opportunity to customize their fruits and vegetables into smoothies, juice blends, salads, yogurt parfaits and sandwich wraps. The Nourish Spot is located on the iconic Guy R Brewer Blvd, which runs through the heart of SE Queens. Kelly is also partner in Metropolis Group US/Global Connect, a virtual PR & marketing agency. Formerly, Kelly served as department vice president of Global Communications, responsible for providing ongoing internal communications and media relations support for the Prudential Foundation and a number of corporate initiatives.

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