Last Saturday my wife celebrated a special occasion by going to brunch.  The occasion:  Our first child had just turned 1-month old and it would be our first time we go out “on the town” with her.  We’re big brunch fans so we decided to try a new place in Atlanta.

We pulled up Yelp to see what the crowd-sourcing opinion was of various places we’d not tried.  After a good 15 minutes of research on the iPad we settled on an intriguing French Market called Le Petit Marche, 5 stars on Yelp is hard to beat.  Our meal was delicious and the concept was both unique and it shared an “at-home” kind of feeling, similar to a good coffee shop.  I was intrigued to learn more about the story behind the place and its owner.

The owner was not hard to spot. First, she seem to know most of the people that walked through the door.  Additionally, she was out in the restaurant taking orders, busting tables, ringing up customers, and selling her market goods.  I got to talking to her about her story and was real encouraged.

She had a career in real estate in California and decided to relocate to Atlanta several years before the great real estate collapse started.  She was growing tired of real estate and grew more interested in starting and running her own market food shop.  She started planning the concept and working out how she could launch it.  I was floored to learn that her planning period seemed to conclude right around the late 2007/2008 market crash.  She knew that residential real estate in Atlanta was not going to work so she plowed right ahead.

Her primary concept was to be more of a french goods and foods market, almost like a micro Dean and Deluca, with a little food counter where patrons would order small deli-type foods.  The owner did what any recession-era entrepreneur would do and watched her customers closely.  It was obvious that the foods market concept was struggling but her patrons loved the food counter.  She also noticed that the hours she had picked weren’t what the customers wanted.

So, she evolved her concept by bulding up the actual restaurant part, reducing the market concept to more specialty gift items, and rotating the hours to meet a growing breakfast/brunch crowd.    Amazingly these changes allowed her to not only survive but to become one of the best breakfast/brunch places in Atlanta (close 5 STARS ON YELP).

So hats off to her.  She not only started a business in the recession but she built it to be among the best in its class.