When Eugene resident Mary Ann Beauchamp@@http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2007/07/26/chow/features5.html@@ began concocting recipes in her kitchen nearly 30 years ago, it was in hopes of creating delicious yet healthy dishes that would placate her young daughter’s picky palate.
After perfecting her now-famous recipes over the next decade that blended both Eastern and Western natural ingredients with her trademark special sauce, Beauchamp opened her first restaurant in 1997 — a small 500 square feet space at the Fifth Street Public Market@@http://www.5stmarket.com/@@. Since then, Beauchamp’s restaurant, Cafe Yumm!, has grown into a large franchise that has expanded to 11 locations in six different cities throughout the state.
“At the time when the first restaurant was created by Mary Ann, she just loved cooking and wanted to feed people,” Ed Gerdes, the vice president and general counsel of Cafe Yumm!’s franchise@@http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ed-gerdes/25/268/91b@@, said. “It wasn’t till several years later that, through demand, it was realized that the possibility to expand to other cities was open to us.”
In spite of the restaurant’s resounding success, Gerdes said the company is proud of its homegrown roots in Eugene and praised the opportunities provided by Eugene that helps to make small businesses become successful. That same sort of recognition put the city in the national limelight this week, when The Washington Post ranked Eugene as the 16^th “most-friendly city for independent businesses in the country” — a list that also included Medford, Corvallis and Bend.@@http://kezi.com/page/228525@@
The main concept that was highlighted by The Washington Post is Envision Eugene@@same link@@, the city’s growth management study that is designed to accommodate for the city’s projected population growth over the next twenty years. While many factors may affect the outcome of the study, such as the economic recovery, Terri Harding, a senior city planner and an Envision Eugene public involvement manager,@@http://www.eugene-or.gov/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=815&PageID=0&cached=true&mode=2&userID=2@@ said the study serves as the framework for future plans as the city grows and expands. In all, Harding said the city is expecting its population to increase by about 34,000 more people over the next twenty years.
“The future is pretty uncertain in terms of what will happen with the economy, housing, choice for people, gas prices, and all of those things, but what we’re trying to do is create a flexible plan so that we can adapt and adjust in addition to change,” Harding said.
Although the city’s Department of Planning and Development had never been contacted to the Washington Post prior to the publication of the city’s rankings, Harding said one of the most attractive parts about the Envision Eugene is the city’s diverse range of input from various community members with equally diverse concerns.
“We are taking a very intentional community approach to the plan,” Harding said. “We’re spending a lot of time doing community outreach with members of the business community and also members of the environmental community and neighborhoods at the same time. So, we really have diverse stakeholders all together taking a look at what Eugene future will be, and our economic well-being is a very important part of the vision.”
Among the many reasons to start a small business in Eugene, Gerdes cited several factors as key points that led to Cafe Yumm!’s success including: a large number of people who consciously buy locally based products, a local government that is helpful by providing resources to independent businesses at Lane Community College’s Small Business Development Center, and a supportive entrepreneurial group at the city’s chamber of commerce that provides initial investors to start up companies in Eugene.
“We’re known as a very unique place,” Harding said, “a place that supports independent thinking and ventures.”