Thursday, October 22, 1998

How small business owners discover, validate their entrepreneurial ambitions.

By SCOTT SCHOLTEN

Staff Writer

For years, Cindy McCathren cooked a lot of food for a lot of friends. They raved about her culinary skills.

So when her husband, Jim, noticed his architectural firm had outgrown its current location, Cindy sensed a chance to cultivate the seed fertilized by her friends abd planted in her head long ago.

On March 1, Cindy is set to open Kitchens, a shop specializing in kitchen supplies and cooking classes.

"I've always wanted secretly some kind of retail store with cooking," Cindy said.

The store will be a total kitchen experience: food, wine, cabinets, stoves, mixers.

Everything, that is, except for cleaning.

First and foremost, the shop will offer cooking tutorials, where customers will cook along with a chef. Themes will vary monthly, Cindy said. For example, soups and sauces one month, 101 gourmet ways to fix chicken the next.

The store will sell a range of kitchen appliances and supplies unavailable in Abilene.

Kitchens may be a store that will cater to a narrow audience, namely households willing to invest extensively in their kitchens, but Cindy's sure it will take off while the ranks of America's gourmets grows.

"People are returning to their kitchens," Cindy said.

They're spending more time in them and are interested in fixing fancy dinners, Cindy said. People are sick and tired of fixing and eating casseroles and other jiffy dinners all the time, Cindy said.

People yearn for something special.

Cindy's first step toward cementing her business idea was simply collecting stories from Abilene residents.

Cindy collected anecdotes about people going to the Metroplex or Albuquerque to find kitchen adventures. Abilene doesn't offer the gourmet atmosphere Kitchens is supposed to, Cindy said.

Nor can people find the specialty equipment Kitchens is going to showcase, Cindy said, like six-burner stoves or super-suction hoods.

Cindy said after she'd heard stories from locals and read enough articles in food-oriented magazines about shops like Kitchens, she started with some official research.

There was a slew of stats from various information gatherers.

Cindy found out the number of Kitchens-like shops in the United States has grown five-fold in a matter of years.

Packaged Facts Information Services compiled statistics such as there were 55 million gourmet cooking fans in 1980; by 1995, that number had reached 75 million.

Other industry monitors predict 25-30 percent growth in the next five years, Cindy said.

Cindy noticed a blossoming number of magazines geared toward gourmet cooks, and that old standbys such as <I>Bon Appetit<I> are seeing their circulations grow, she said.

After arming herself with facts and figures, Cindy went to a market in Dallas where gourmet and kitchen supplies shops order their inventories.

There she found a nationwide consultant who has opened many gourmet shops.

None of the shops has yet closed, Cindy said.

And there she had it.

Cindy happened on her business idea like many other entrepreneurs.

In Cindy's case, she was looking for a service or product she herself fancied, then backed it up with research.

Though that may have worked for Cindy, Eugene Kiefer, a counselor at Abilene's Small Business Development Center, said he cautions budding entrepreneurs when they use this avenue.

"We tell them it can mean two things when some particular industry, product or service is not available in Abilene: It's either a good opportunity or the Abilene lifestyle doesn't support it," Kiefer said. "Just because it doesn't exist doesn't mean it's a good idea."

Another way would-be entrepreneurs settle on a niche is by reading an article in an entrepreneur-oriented magazine that advocates a certain type of business, Kiefer said.

Sometimes, people decide they can do a job better than their boss. That's the third most common way people decide to go into business for themselves, Kiefer said.

People will use the skills they've cultivated after years in a firm and, after identifying areas of operation they think they could improve on, open their own shop or factory, Kiefer said.

Since Kitchens will open on the ground floor of the building Jim's firm will occupy, the couple's venture is something of a two-fer.

If people come into Kitchens with designs on upgrading their kitchens, Cindy has only to call upstairs for a designer from her husband's firm. She, the designer and the customer can then figure out which gizmos, counter tops and cabinetry ought to be included.

For Cindy, this is fortunate.

Tying a new business to an established one can only increase the odds her small business will endure.

<I>Scott Scholten may be contacted at (915) 676-6737, or scholtens@abinews.com.<I>