Arkansas Small Business & Tech Center Offers Help for Restaurants

(Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center)

The Arkansas Small Business & Technology Development Center is offering programming and consulting help to food- or beverage-related businesses in Faulkner, Jefferson, Pulaski and White counties this year.

All the events are free, but preregistration is required.

The first event, talks by local restaurateurs and businesspeople, was scheduled for Feb. 15, but three more events are planned for March 15, April 3 and May 15.

♦ On March 15, Martin Butts, an advocate for locally grown foods, will present two half-day workshops and a full-day food product “boot camp” in Little Rock. Butts is owner of Small Potatoes, a consulting firm in Syracuse, New York, that specializes in working with small-scale and startup food businesses.

♦ On April 13 in Little Rock and May 15 in Searcy, the center is holding Lean Canvas workshops. ASBTDC has customized the canvas, a planning tool for developing a business idea, for startup food or beverage businesses.

“Customer expectations in the food and beverage industry are changing, and we will continue to see shifts, especially among millennials, who are willing to pay a premium for a superior food experience,” said Laura Fine, state director of the ASBTDC. “We want to help startup and existing food and beverage businesses understand what their customers want and use that knowledge to their advantage.

“Restaurants and other food businesses are some of the most popular to start. To have success, they need more than a tasty product. The business side has to be solid, and we can help with that.”

The project is funded by a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

For more information about these offerings, email or call ASBTDC’s Shannon Roberts at SXRoberts@UALR.edu or (501) 683-7700.