On sweat equity and indie business upward striving.

Looking over my notes these past few weeks, I detect a pattern. It might embrace those wishing to be a rock and roll star chef.

Chef Mark Mendez: Open letter to a culinary student

In beer terms ...

So You Think You Want to Open a Brewery

Gary Humphrey might chime in from the basement of RCW:

Opinion: Wanna Start a Winery? Get Ready to Sweat

And then there's Nathan and the folks behind Quills.

Living The Coffee Shop Dream

The common themes are steep learning curves and plain hard work, as exist somewhere off to the side of the red carpet. The encouraging part is that when they're present and clicking, as with restaurants, a brewery, a winery and a coffee roaster in downtown New Albany, there's the chance (just a chance, not a certainty) of getting somewhere ... of making it happen.

I was having an e-mail conversation with an old friend, who wrote something striking about the typical disconnect between local government and the indie grassroots.

The only way it stops if for a new nonprofit is organized by the community's business owners and that group begins exercising its political power. No city money, no city representation, just business persons at the local level. It would take years to start up and I doubt that it would actually function in NA but that's the only way I see anything working to the advantage of the business community.

We're working on it.

What these various restaurant, brewery, winery and coffee people (me included) are coming to realize is that starting a non-profit in this fashion takes the same learning curve and work ethic as getting their own businesses off the ground. We don't have a lot of spare time, but we can do it. And we are.