Continuous Learning for Individuals, Management & Business

The PCC Small Business Development Center will offer Preventative Controls Qualified Individual (PCQI) Training for food manufacturers from April 16 to May 29, 2020. PCQI Training will equip you with knowledge to be recognized as a PCQI, but is also structured to guide you to develop all elements required in a Food Safety Plan, including a completed Food Product Recall Plan.

Small business ownership runs in Leslie Hildula's family. Her parents and grandparents were entrepreneurs, so she's been around small business owners all of her life. These days she is busy running the Restaurant and Retail programs for the PCC Small Business Development Center. (Click on the links below to review upcoming course dates and locations.)

Here is her story. . . 

Winter programming from the PCC Small Business Development Center begins after January 1st! We've summarized upcoming programs and their start dates below. Get in touch if you'd like to learn more about a program, or need help with enrollment. 

In August of 2019, the Northeast Portland brunch cafe Beeswing closed its doors. The restaurant had been open for two and a half years and was owned and operated by industry veterans. The reason? It wasn’t profitable enough. And Beeswing isn’t alone: Portland has a long history of shuttered restaurants and bars that served amazing food and drink but were still eventually closed because they didn’t make sense financially.

"The program was a great help, I wish we would have started (with Restaurant Business Builders) before we actually considered the idea of opening our own business."

Watch: Senior Advisor and Program Facilitator Leslie Hildula interviews Daisy and Ivan from Good Karma Rose Juice Bar & Caffé - located in Portland, Oregon's Kenton neighborhood - and recent graduates of the Restaurant Business Builders program.

Registration for fall programming opened last week and PCC SBDC is accepting applications from small business owners, entrepreneurs and global trade professionals seeking to tap into the experts and advisors at the PCC Small Business Development Center. Read on to learn more!

Restaurant Business Builders is our once-per-year course created specifically for current or aspiring restauranteurs. It doesn't matter if you have a brick and mortar location, or a food truck, or are currently in the planning stage. The fundamental restaurant-centric business practices applied in this program, and curated with the support of Portland foodie experts, will help restauranteurs improve business practices, identify efficiencies and avoid trial and error - while developing support from a network of mentors and peers. Restaurant Business Builders is accepting participants for the next program, beginning in April. To commemorate, we're assembling content from several blogs that our experts have produced over the years:

DesiPDX is a food cart located in Portland’s Mississippi district serving food inspired by Indian spices and flavors that are blended with cooking styles from the West and other parts of the world. OR as Deepak calls it "Local Fare with Indian Flair!" 

Deepak participated in the PCC Small Business Development Center Restaurant Business Builders program. This is his story...

What inspired you to start your business? I’ve had a passion for cooking for about 20 years and was interested in turning that into a business when I started getting bored [with] my previous career in the tech industry. 

No matter how successful you are, owning and operating a successful restaurant is an ongoing challenge to maintain - and build upon - your accomplishments. Whether it’s keeping up to date on the latest in restaurant news, or finding tips and tricks on how to improve service and food quality, it’s important to continually tap into resources that can help improve your business.

Running a restaurant is a difficult endeavor, and it requires effective restaurant management to help your restaurant thrive. Diners expect quick and excellent service from staff that strive to ensure they have a pleasurable meal; the best way to provide that is through an efficiently-managed restaurant. This requires a myriad of things to run properly and smoothly, including your management, wait and cook staff, and even the layout of your restaurant can have an impact. Without each of these things operating cohesively, your restaurant as a whole could suffer. We’ve put together four steps to strengthen each of these areas and improve performance.