Business startups navigate the bumps in the road

Small businesses surmount snags and aim to open doors
Challenges in Detroit include access to capital and shortage of contractors
Experiences highlight that road to opening is never a smooth ride

You can't judge the status of a new business by its exterior.

Take Norma G's Caribbean Cuisine on East Jefferson Avenue on Detroit's far east side. From the street, the planned Caribbean restaurant in a former bank building has been looking vacant and forlorn — not that different from a year ago.

"What you can't see is all the work we are doing inside," said Lester Gouvia, owner of Demitart Gourmet aka Norma G's. "All the HVAC is done. The rough plumbing is done. The framing is done."

In the original timeline, construction was scheduled to begin last fall. The restaurant was supposed to open last spring. The new opening date is November or December, he said. In fact, last week new windows were being installed and other improvements were visible. The restaurant is taking shape.

Gouvia is one of several business owners who planned to open in 2016 or in the spring of this year but still haven't gotten over the finish line.

He, like dozens of other small-business owners, was a recipient of funding from the Motor City Match program and other funding. But financing, city licensing and regulations slowed the opening process, he said, showing that the path to opening a new business is never simple, and the best-laid plans can't predict everything.

Anthony Askew, Motor City Match program manager, said the largest hurdles for Motor City Match recipients remain access to capital and a shortage of skilled contractors to work on remodeling, repairing and renovating the building space. "There's more work to go around than contractors to do it."

He added that across the city, there are now more community financial institutions to help fund new businesses than two years ago. "Motor City Match has helped develop that market." CFIs have been godsend for many starting small businesses.

Askew said there is not a set timeline from business planning to opening the doors. "But now that we have funded almost 90 buildings in two years with the program, we are crunching the numbers to tell a better story."

Crain's Detroit Business checked in with a number of businesses we covered in 2016 that still have planned openings but are running behind schedule, have changed their location or format or both.

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