Today we’d like to introduce you to Camille Holder-Brown.
Camille, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I love the arts and went to school for filmmaking and even earned a Master’s degree in it, but realized that I secretly just wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, so that is what I did! My husband, Omar Brown, is also my business partner and supported our young family back in Brooklyn as an engineer. We met when I was a senior in high school. What we both had in common is that we were vegetarians in 1996, do not ask me how many years that is. After 3 children with a 4th on the way, my husband got laid off his job. I was missing my mom in Florida, where I grew up and we had just visited her for her 60th birthday. My husband refused to get another job working for anyone else. Before there was Kale Cafe, there was Midtown EcoVillage which is a non-profit we started to advocate for healthy lifestyles and environmental sustainability, as we were living in a food desert. After a year of being on about a dozen committees and being professional volunteers, we were starting to get low on cash. After all, we were not trust fund babies, LOL. So, my husband suggested we sell food at the farmer’s market. We did great there and also vended at Earth Day in Lake Eola Park as well. It was the year 2011 and we were hustling and we kept building a customer base, there were other vendors that were amazing and inspired us.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has been full of smoothies, but not so smooth, but after doing this entrepreneur thing for over 11 years, I am growing quite fond of the journey. It is so easy to compare myself and my success of lack thereof to other companies. I have to stop and remind myself that their story is not my story and that everything is in divine order. My husband and I have six children so we not only juggle a business and homeschooling but also their extra-curricular activities. It is a constant balance of asking myself am I doing my best in this category, and am I neglecting someone or something? The hardest lesson that has taken me 43 years to learn is that it is not selfish to pour into myself first, whether that means dancing, working out, reading, going on walks, or other ways of self-care, as when I neglect myself, my business and family absolutely suffer. They are a total reflection of me at all times. I remember about 7 years ago when we neglected to pay our sales tax on time and it caught up with us, we did not know what we were doing and we had two locations and it was chaotic. Of course, I had a newborn as well, and the next thing I know my bank account is frozen and I owe a lot of money and had to operate on cash-only until I could rectify the situation and get on a payment plan. Fast forward to present day, I have an app on my POS that pays my sales tax daily and files it too. Hence problem solved. Additionally, it was fun having no systems and running from retail store to store getting bananas because someone did not do inventory, but then it got old. I felt trapped in my Kale Cage! So, then recipes and systems started to emerge, it was that or close down as my husband and I knew we could not do everything forever. Work smarter not harder became the mantra, and every podcast and self-help book became the mentoring needed to help us push through. Closing 2 locations because we did not have systems or capital was heartbreaking and we almost gave up, but we loved it too much. It feels great to know that we make a difference in this community and people love us and our business. We are vested in our community and that means all the hurdles we have to jump do nothing but make our legs chiseled and stronger. And who doesn’t love Olympians and strong legs? LOL
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Kale Café started in the beginning of 2014 and we are a vegan restaurant and juice bar, that specializes in Caribbean flavors. We are an innovative scratch kitchen that makes our own meat and cheese in-house. Kale is our favorite leafy green and we do not decorate with it, we eat it as it loaded with nutrients! So, in the fall of 2019 we bottled out house salad dressing which is a new company named after our youngest child Judah, simply called “Judah Dressing” Our goal with our businesses are to make our tasty vegan food available to people all over the world that may have been skeptical about tasty vegan food. Jerk mushrooms, brown rice, and peas with fresh coconut milk, and veggie burgers made in-house, are just some of our specialties. Unlike other vegan spots, we feed our customers what we eat ourselves, so we do not rely on processed foods but instead slice hundreds of pounds of onion, tomatoes, pumpkin, potatoes, and greens daily. We use local and organic foods as much as possible and we serve everyone with kindness and love and treat you like family. Our community and customers know that and there is nowhere we go that we do not get embraced for the good food we serve and how we give back. To me that is success, the icing on the cake is going to be the financial wealth we build for our six children as we grow the company to a franchise and get our dressing into online and retail shelves, dominating the salad dressing industry.
How do you define success?
Success is liking what you do and how you do it. It is also being proud of yourself and what you do, and success is not a destination as people I consider successful are always growing, doing, and being more. I am amazed, I feel like they never run out of energy or ideas and they keep reinventing themselves, which I love. However, my biggest accolades are my babies. I beam with pride when my kids graduates college at 17, or get inducted into the Honor Society, or get back on the beam during a competition, smile while dancing on stage and so much more. It melts my heart, they are my biggest investment so when they win, I feel so successful.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kalecafejuicebar.com / https://kale-cafe.myshopify.com/
- Instagram: @kale_cafe_juice_bar
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thekalecafe/
Image Credits
Kenneth Grant Inzpirations
