There is not much Juicy Kitchen Cafe doesn't do in the food business these days.
"We still do catering," says Susan Todoroff, owner of
Juicy Kitchen Cafe. "We still do home-prepared meals except we don’t deliver them anymore. Our customers come and pick them up."
From Juicy Kitchen Cafe's new retail location on 1506 N. Maple Road that it has spent 2013 establishing. The Ann Arbor-based company went from no one knowing there any businesses in the forlorn strip mall to a vibrant business with a core group of regulars that eat there multiple times week.
"(Opening the cafe) was really more of a lifestyle choice than a business decision for me," Todoroff says. "I want to wait on the people I am cooking for."
That has allowed Juicy Kitchen Cafe to grow to a core team of four full-timers and a few part-time employees. The retail operation now makes up about two thirds of the company's revenue. Prepared meals make up another 20-some percent with catering taking up the rest.
"I want to grow the catering side of the business," Todoroff says.
Source: Susan Todoroff, owner of Juicy Kitchen
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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