Founder, Louise’s Soul-Food Restaurant
htammie@bellsouth.net
What do you do better than anyone else? Answer that question and you might come up with your next, best business idea.
One of the things Louise Holmes does best… having grown up on a farm in rural Georgia in the 1940s with nine siblings… she learned early how to cook to please a crowd.
Several decades later, Louise launched a catering business and last year, Louise, 61, and her two daughters Tammie and Charla put their savings on the line to launch Louise’s soul-food restaurant in Atlanta.
Serving up dishes like meat loaf, chicken pot pie, fried catfish, and sides like saucy lima beans and custardy corn bread, Louise and her daughters are carrying on their family’s cooking traditions and hoping to create a legacy for generations to come.
Meet Louise and many entrepreneurs at Ladies Who Launch LIVE in Atlanta on November 9th, and read on for highlights of her story.
Secret to Success
Louise: “The secret (to my success) really and truly is the food. It’s the taste of the food. I learned to cook from my mother – we started out cooking at an early age. I was probably about 12. I grew up cooking collard greens, fried chicken, mac and cheese, black-eyed peas, homemade biscuits, pork chops, sweet potatoes, broccoli casserole and rice.”
Constantly Cooking
“When I got married, I took a job at a hotel in Augusta as a cook and I worked there for maybe three years and I liked the work really well. Then I worked at a school in the cafeteria and I liked working there really well. By raising a large family, I cooked all the time. I love to cook.”
Aspiring to Make Better Money
“I wanted to go into business for myself. What really made me to go into the restaurant business is, I wanted more income and I thought by me owning my own business, I would be able to make more money.
“I had to work harder and sacrifice. But running the catering business, I was able to see… ‘Hmmm, I was able to make X amount of dollars in this amount of time.’ I did that for so long (ran the catering business) and the girls got interested and they wanted to open the restaurant. We saw the opportunity for more family members to get involved.”
Greatest Challenge
“Money was one of our hardest things… for the equipment and the employees and your overhead expenses, things like that. We pooled money from our retirement… Plus the girls pulled money from different places and we had to borrow some money.”
Lesson Learned
“If I had to go into business again, I would want to save up more money for it than I had.”
Goals for the Future
“Really (I’d like to) just retire. (The restaurant) is something that I wanted and all… but it’s a foundation for the ones that are coming on, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I have 12 grandchildren. I want to travel when I retire. I wanted to be able to go where I want to go without money problems.”
Key Support System: Help from Her Husband
“We met in middle school and got married when I was 21 and he was 27. He’s employed at Keebler in Augusta. He’s a mechanic. He’s been there for 44 years. He has really supported me 100 percent. If it wasn’t for him standing by us, I don’t think we could have made it. We’re in it together.”
Words of Advice
“Once you get that desire to want to go into business, you’re going to have to be able to stay focused regardless what the circumstances are. Things may not be convenient for you. Stay focused and continue reaching for your goals.
“Everybody may not crowd your door when you’re first starting out, but then you have to continue staying focused. Maybe if I was fixing a cake and that didn’t taste well, then you would have to change your ingredients to get it to your clients’ taste, so that it’s something they’ll enjoy. I realized that in the area (of Atlanta) that I was in, they didn’t want pork in their vegetables, so I had to change that recipe to smoked turkey with my vegetables.”
When She’s Not at the Restaurant…
“I mostly go to church and visit and that’s about it. I’m not really out with all this other stuff.”
