Bloomington City Council — Transcript
Thursday, August 22, 2024
Story
Three finalists pitch for $100,000 Bloomington business prize
Kel Sony (Kone) Business Pitch: Modest Activewear and Women's Wellness Hub
Nuna West African Cuisine Business Pitch: Authentic Restaurant Concept
Scrambling Egg Business Pitch: Food Trailer to Brick-and-Mortar Breakfast
Votes (3)
Kel Sony (Kone) Business Pitch: Modest Activewear and Women's Wellness Hub
Dissent: N/A
Moved by N/A · Seconded by N/A
Mona Muhammad presented Kone, a brand creating modest and culturally sensitive activewear, motivated by personal experience and research on low activity rates among Black Muslim girls. She proposed a flagship store in Bloomington that would serve as a community hub for women's wellness, offering culturally inclusive clothing and fitness programs. Discussions covered the inclusive nature of the space for all women, not just Muslims, and how the $100,000 prize would be allocated across build-out, rent, inventory, equipment, staffing, and marketing. Additional funding strategies, including crowdfunding and grants, were also detailed. Questions focused on clarity regarding the business model (gym vs. retail), break-even points, market inclusivity, and the feasibility of the build-out budget.
Nuna West African Cuisine Business Pitch: Authentic Restaurant Concept
Dissent: N/A
Moved by N/A · Seconded by N/A
Rasa and Shaban Laban presented Nuna, a West African restaurant aiming to fill a culinary gap in Bloomington, inspired by Rasa's culinary journey from Togo. The concept focuses on authentic takeout and dining, featuring five signature dishes and a Chipotle-style serving model for efficiency and customer interaction. The strategy emphasizes securing a small, 'TurnKey' space to manage fixed costs. Discussions covered the restaurant's proposed hours, the availability of wholesale ingredients, and the planned revenue growth. Judges inquired about the business's break-even point (still being determined), the feasibility of the 1,000 sq ft space for both kitchen and seating, and how catering would be handled without additional space or labor.
Scrambling Egg Business Pitch: Food Trailer to Brick-and-Mortar Breakfast
Dissent: N/A
Moved by N/A · Seconded by N/A
Grant Veitenheimer and Nick Peterson presented Scrambling Egg, a successful fast-casual breakfast food truck in Bloomington transitioning to a brick-and-mortar location. They detailed their strategy of operating the food truck like a fixed location to prove market demand, demonstrating 102% sales growth since opening in April 2023. The $100,000 prize would fund kitchen upgrades, menu expansion (including coffee and potato sides), and technology integration (kiosks, online ordering) in an East Bloomington space that already has a functional kitchen. Discussions covered their ambitious five-year plan for multiple metro locations and an out-of-state presence, average ticket size ($16), and their break-even target of 60 orders/day. Judges probed staffing needs, the preservation of brand 'pizzazz' in a fixed location, and practical concerns like grease interceptors and air control systems for the new space.
Notable Quotes (9)
my name is Mona Muhammad I'm the CEO and founder of Clone Clon in my language means confidence and what I hope to do is create confidence within my community so that young girls and women can be more active
eliminating one resource which was a access to um culturally inclusive clothing so I wanted to create a flagship store um and I wanted to not only sell clothes but my goal is when you walk into my space you have access to culture inclusive clothing you have access to culturally um inclusive Sports hijabs and all she needs but I wanted to create a community Hub where she comes in regardless of whether you're Muslim or not I want a space where women can come together be able to work out have personalized workouts group workouts and just create a community Hub made for us
my goal is to find a space that's already mostly finished um and lease it out and fix my goal is to mainly focus on flooring and then whatever add-ons there needs to be and then I kind of allocated 25% but 25% but I also want to raise money to build that the store
we don't have any actual West African restaurants in our city so if anybody wanted to experience authentic West African cuisine you'd have to travel all the way up to St Louis Park for anything remotely similar to what we're going to be doing here in Bloomington
oh I want this or I want that oh I'm not familiar with this can you explain what that is so that everyone can understand where we're coming from and they can find a new taste that they enjoy
From the way that our food is prepared um because you can make a large quantity of it and store it for a certain amount of time because we have the ability to produce so much of that food um in a space that isn't terribly big that we would need because of that catering being added to our restaurant would fundamentally not change how much space we would need because every all the space that we need is right there
The reason we did that is because we wanted to prove that our concept Works scrambling egg doesn't operate like other breakfast restaurants and we don't operate like other food trucks either we don't go to events or festivals we plant ourselves in public areas across Bloomington for one week this has allowed us to treat ourselves like a brick and mortar to see if there is a demand for fast casual breakfast food and after a year and a half of operations we can confident say there is
We get over 100 orders every day and we get them all out as efficiently as possible out of our limited space with the money we can increase the size of our kitchen to improve our ticket times expand our menu to gain more customers and utilize technology to make our customers ordering and pickup processes more efficient all of these improvements rely on scrambling egg obtaining its first brick and mortar location in Bloomington
we want to be right in the middle where you can get a delicious breakfast meal served quickly at an affordable price and we also wanted to include this photo because it's very important to us this was drawn way back in 2016 when we realized the breakfast industry needed to change
Ordinances & Resolutions (5)
A required step for Kone in Q1 2025.
Considerations for Kone's location in Bloomington.
Submitted by Scrambling Egg for their brick-and-mortar location.
Drafted by lawyers for Scrambling Egg founders via the Elevate Hennepin program.
Sought by Nuna's founder at City Hall, which led to discovering the Hatch Bloomington competition.