Red Door Catering

Red Door Catering is a local business that supports local businesses. They work with local farmers and producers to gather the best organic, seasonal ingredients they can to make their food.

Chef Reign Free has been in the kitchen since she was nine, seated on a stool beside her mother cooking traditional West Indian dishes for her family. As an entrepreneur, Reign continues to push the envelope of customer service, community consciousness, and innovative cuisine. Her partner, Chef Steven Rubin, grew up on Philadelphia’s Main Line and perfected his craft in the Bay Area.

They started Red Door as a special event planner for companies located in the San Francisco Bay Area, and they’ve worked with the American Red Cross, Google, Facebook, Kaiser Permanente, the City of Oakland, and Clif Bar. Red Door has been recognized at California Small Business Day, awarded “Enterprise On the Rise” by The Women’s Initiative, and was chosen to cater Super Bowl 50’s VIP Tailgate event.

Suffice to say, Red Door has been a strong and growing company for a number of years now, but when they needed to move into a larger kitchen space to continue that growth, they couldn’t secure a loan from any traditional lenders. Reign was referred to Pacific Community Ventures and we couldn’t wait to work with them!

They’re completely aligned with Pacific Community Ventures’ mission, and believe in creating good jobs. Red Door offers a matched 401K plan, flexible spending accounts, health care, paid time off, cell phone reimbursement, gym membership, and free staff meals. They hire from disadvantaged communities, source locally as much as possible, reward carpooling, use only compostable and reusable serviceware, donate as part of Oakland’s gun buyback program, and contribute yearly grants to support organizations that offer services to hard-to-reach youth and displaced women.

We connected Reign with the capital she needed, and paired her with a pro bono expert advisor from our BusinessAdvising.org program. Reign and Red Door are working with finance advisor Dave Weill of CFO Solutions. Dave’s helping review Reign’s financial statements, assessing the company’s financial performance, and offering advice regarding their operations. And now Red Door is on track to create 10 new jobs in their first year alone of working with Pacific Community Ventures!

Could your small business benefit from free advice or a fair and affordable loan? PCV can help. Learn more about our advising program or our loan program.