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Made Lemonade from Lemons after Hurricane Katrina
USA Today: It took Aaron Wolfson five years to open The Savvy Gourmet, a cooking school, catering outfit and upscale kitchenware shop in New Orleans.
His timing couldn’t have been worse: He opened in mid-August 2005.
As floodwaters washed through the city following Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29 of that year, Wolfson’s business plan suddenly seemed absurd. His shop did not flood, but that seemed beside the point when 80% of the city did. Assuming anyone returned to the devastated city, who was going to take a cooking class? Or buy a lemon squeezer? Or need a party catered?
“I was thinking, ‘I have made the biggest mistake of my life, and it will take forever to recover financially,’ ” says Wolfson, 35. “I’d mortgaged my house and begged, borrowed and stolen to open that place.”
Unlike thousands of business owners in the flood-ravaged metro area, Wolfson and his childhood friend and general manager, Peter Menge, also 35, didn’t call it quits. In late September 2005, they came up with a new business plan to suit the needs of a largely abandoned city.
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