Opening and Closing a Business

If you know us personally, or if you picked it up in this post, you know that we owned a business. It was an Esfiha shop at a local Farmer's Market. We called it Mr. Esfihas and it was a realization of Juliano's dream.

Juliano has always been an entrepreneur, in the sense that he's never been very settled with the 'rat race'.  Mr. Esfihas started out with an Idea, some inspiration and a LOT of planning. {Not so different in theory that this adventure!}. It was fun to see it come together, to plan and create every element of our our own mini-ecosystem in the market. We joined a new market and the booth was built from the ground up:

  

 

We were amazed and appreciated all the support that we received from friends and family! It's so great to see that when you pursue something with passion, people truly want to be a part of it. It was a great experience to see everyone come together for us.

The skeleton crew of Mr. Esfihas {all 4 of us!} worked hard to make it an amazing place that was fun to be around, selling delicious food:

 

We had a super-delicious and reasonably priced menu! It was also really cute, a graphic designer and very-crafty friend of ours designed it, and did an amazing job! How great are the little faces??

Here's what we had to say about it on our website:

We started out with the idea of providing Calgary with a new and unique food item, a healthy alternative to fast food. We were both born in Brazil, and grew up eating esfihas. 
Now calling Calgary home, we want to introduce our favorite esfiha flavors to you!

There are lots of great flavors, and all the Esfihas are handmade by us!

See you at the Market!

 Owning and operating Mr. Esfihas was something that we did above and beyond our usual M-F/9-5 jobs. {Didn't I say we're not afraid to work hard?} We were open for about a year, and it was a great experience. We learned so much about how business operates, how to prioritize your life/goals, what giving 100% really means, and how to confidently make really tough decisions.

Turns out a mix of following your instincts and thinking it through usually results in the best decisions!

After being open most of 2011, we've sold our space to an awesome couple to start their own new small business dream! Mr. Esfihas is going on the back-burner for now, while we pursue other dreams. I'm sure that being a small business owner will always be a part of Juliano's life - so we'll see where that takes us...

For now, we loved owing a business and including all the ups and downs that come with it, we don't regret doing it for a second. It was an amazing experience!