Branko shares his journey in the food world and taking over the family restaurant, Oasis.

Bite Size Talks 2017

<p>Branko shares his journey in the food world and taking over the family restaurant, Oasis.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

ASI Pacific Union

Branko Fernandez

My Journey to Starting a Food Business

My presentation today is titled My Journey, How I Found Success in Health and Business.

Friends, in life, I really feel like we share much as human beings.

So I believe there's a huge value and huge value in sharing stories because our stories are very similar.

So today I just wanted to share with you really quickly about myself, my history, where I came from, who I am, how I got to where I am today.

And my hope is that I can inspire you, I can motivate you to take massive action in your life, to take ownership for your direction.

So oh, also I am not accustomed to presentations with slides since probably the eighth grade.

I usually speak without technology like this.

About 4 and a half years ago I founded a company called Secret Table in San Diego with my brother Pablo.

This picture is very intentional because he's in it right there.

I wouldn't be where I am today without my brother.

He is 1 of my main mentors in life, motivators.

I look up to him and he is 1 of the people, 1 of the persons in my life that really propelled me and motivated me to become an entrepreneur and to step into a world which I am now addicted to.

He was supposed to be here today presenting alongside me, but he's out there doing some groundwork for our company, which we're looking to branch out into retreats.

I'm also co-owner of Oasis Vegetarian Cafe.

That was founded 20 years ago by my parents.

Who, who knows Riverside here, who goes out there?

Anybody's like, how many people have ate at Oasis here?

If anybody wants to go to my cafe, I have coupons today.

So you can go get 20% off, half off a smoothie.

Something that's a huge mission to my family with this cafe is ending the, what is called food desert.

And what that really means is a lack of healthy food.

Because there's really not a lack of food.

There's a lot of unhealthy options out there for the mass majority of people, especially in impoverished areas of this world.

So my mission and my family's mission with that place is to spread because what we offer is plant-based organic food that's fast, casual, and accessible to the community.

So it's our mission to alleviate our epidemic of unhealthiness in this country and around the world.

So, a little bit about me, I grew up in that area.

Most days you can find me at the cafe doing handstands.

I enjoy teaching cooking classes, I'm a nutritional chef.

1 of the things that I got started in, it propelled me in the entrepreneur field, the first thing that I was doing was teaching nutritional cooking classes about 4 and a half years ago.

I mentioned, you know, something that a lot of people have mentioned, a lot of the speakers prior to me, is the amount of work that it takes to, to become, you know, to follow your dreams.

You know, They're not just handed to you.

And 1 of the things that I kind of wanted to speak about today is while I was doing that, while I was building these companies, I probably averaged 3 to 4 jobs, serving tables, managing a cooking school, and then building my own business, mostly in the restaurant industry.

Some of the events that we throw at Secret Table, we host our own like high-end food experiences.

Something that really attracted me, so I grew up in a family of chefs.

Who here grew up blessed with family, mom, grandma could cook really amazing?

I grew up, grandma, dad, everybody could cook.

Growing up, I would eat the best food, come home from practice, whatever, best meal.

So I really grew to appreciate healthy cuisine.

Another thing that I thank the Lord for because I had a really short learning curve in life in a lot of these areas which people have to kind of learn from scratch, start from 0.

And I'm very fortunate to have the family in the background that I did, which was heavy in health.

My family, my mom and dad were athletes growing up.

They started their own cafe in like Guatemala when they were like 19 and 20.

When they moved out to the United States, they had 0.

They washed toilets mainly, started their own janitorial service eventually, bought enough, saved enough money to buy the snack shop, which was what it was called then in La Sierra, which is now the Oasis, when mom started a real estate company.

So I had this really entrepreneurial, I got to watch this growing up and appreciate it.

1 of the things I noticed about food around the kitchen table at my house was that food was not only nourishing for the body, but it was nourishing for the soul.

There's something magical about the kitchen table.

Oftentimes, what I found, and I'm just speaking from experience, and my personal story, you know, what I found in life was that the most meaningful relationships were built, conversations were shared, and thought-provoking moments, etc., were often shared around the table, around good food.

Who can agree that this is something that's dying in our culture today?

So it is a it's like the dinosaurs, It's almost extinct, right?

I think they're extinct, actually, except for a few.

So with The Secret Table, my brother and I, we really had a mission to not only glamorize healthy eating, because it's something that the mainstream, you know, you look at Top Chef, you look at these things on TV, what do you see?

And we're like, you know, this isn't real.

Things that are unhealthy are so glamorized.

And we wanted to present real food, organic, healthy food sourced at the farms in San Diego to the community and show them that, 1, they could impact the community with their dollars at our events.

They could taste what real food that's good for your body tastes like, and it's not boring.

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My Journey to Starting a Food Business

Transcript

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