Columbus Monthly / April 2011 / Microlending and food carts

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Microlending and food carts

Michelle Taphorn owns Earth’s Crust, a vegan pizza cart she parks outside the Global Gallery Coffee Shop in Clintonville. One of her most popular pies is Vegan Harvest, made with caramelized onions, Ohio-grown apples and Daiya “cheese,” which she sells for $3 a slice. And in January, she also launched the Krazy Monkey Juicebar in leased space at Global Gallery’s kitchen.

A Cincinnati native who came to Columbus in 2009, Taphorn worked for several nonprofits before starting her own small business. It hasn’t been easy. To help with overhead costs, Taphorn took out a loan in February from the nonprofit Economic and Community Development Institute (ECDI); it’s a microlender intermediary—the only one of its kind in Central Ohio designated by the U.S. Small Business Administration, from which it receives much of its funding. The organization, which launched in 2004 as a resource for entrepreneurs struggling to get their small businesses off the ground, typically deals in loans of $35,000 and under, but has lent up to $100,000 as demand has increased due to the poor economy.

“Credit is tight,” says Amy Szabo, director of development for ECDI. “Some banks won’t even consider lending without a 730 credit score.” Since its inception, the organization has given roughly 550 loans, totaling more than $9 million.

Founder and CEO Inna Kinney says the organization hopes to be a “one-stop shop” for small business owners of all stripes. Though it works with anyone, those in the food industry make up a substantial portion of its portfolio. (Among its clients are J. Gumbo’s, Taste of Belgium, Jury Room and Luna Burger, to name a few.) “We want to be a place where they can come to get training, learn about food-safety techniques and have access to capital,” she says, adding that ECDI’s clients also can take advantage of its new on-site kitchen and storage facility.

She’s referring to the warehouse behind the nonprofit’s new office on Old Leonard Avenue that will open this spring, doubling as a community kitchen space and a food-cart commissary. It offers food-cart owners a space to store not only their carts, but their food as well. (For cart vendors to operate, they need to be licensed with a reputable commissary.)

With her loan, Taphorn purchased a food truck, which she says will soon house her pizza shop and juice bar. “The application fee [$25 nonrefundable, plus $125 for training and technical assistance] for the loan was less than half of what I had found elsewhere,” she says. “And the fact that I could also take business training courses just for applying for a loan was something no banks could offer me.”

For Kinney and her staff, it’s about investing in Columbus and keeping the dollars here. “Our number one goal is to create a sustainable economy in Columbus, sustainable communities and create jobs,” Kinney says. “We do it one business at a time.”