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SBA Resource Partner Assistance Leads to 2019 SBA Phoenix Award Win for Miami Beach Business
Stephanie Vitori, president of Cheeseburger Baby, originally joined the company as a delivery driver in 2001. After working alongside five other original employees, she was able to learn the business from the bottom up and officially took ownership in February 2004. Since that time, the company has grown to 20 employees and has more than $800,000 in revenues.
Over the years, the business continued to experience steady growth along with its fair share of challenges which came in the form of multiple hurricanes, a recession, and larger franchise burger companies moving into the same block. After restructuring CBB’s business model to ensure the company ongoing success, it was not until 2017 when Hurricane Irma made landfall in South Florida that CBB encountered it biggest obstacle in its 18-year history.
While taking the necessary steps and using savings to prepare and protect the business prior to Hurricane Irma, Stephanie and her staff still faced many equipment failures that resulted in major post-hurricane disruptions. After being without power for almost two weeks, Stephanie was able to eventually use the food truck’s generator to power the restaurant and take small steps toward reopening the doors. This move was not only beneficial for the company, but also for locals and officials she served who were also involved in hurricane clean-up efforts.
After contacting the South Florida District SBA Office, Stephanie was referred to the team the Florida SBDC at Florida International University (FIU) in December 2017 to assist in her business recovery efforts and help navigate the SBA Disaster Loan process. “With the help of both the SBA and SBDC at FIU, I was able to get my store re-opened, get back to pre-storm employment levels and continue the growth by getting my second food truck on the road,” said Stephanie. “We are also working closely with SBDC at FIU on business continuity planning to ensure that our business builds back better and that we can improve our resilience to future disasters.”