"I opened for $70,000 after starting with a $1,000,000 business plan"

Mic Heynekamp of Eddyline Brewery was in our book, Restaurant Owners Uncorked, and told me one of the most interesting stories I've ever heard about opening a restaurant. He and his wife, Molley, drew up a $1,000,000 business plan to open their first restaurant. It included new equipment, a build-out, and everything conventional wisdom says you need to do to get started. After getting declined for the financing they needed, they began to whittle away at the plan, learning that creativity and common sense helped more than a big pile of money. They wound up opening for $70,000, just 7% of what they had originally anticipated they needed. In this interview, Mic tells how they did it, as well as how they built their second location for $750,000 when an architect had told them it would cost $5,000,000. This interview offers tons of practical, repeatable pieces of advice on getting started with your first restaurant, why small towns are a great place to operate, and how you can run your business with trust and delegation to enable a balanced lifestyle and room to grow. Mic and Molley own locations in New Mexico and Colorado, and are currently in New Zealand working on opening a location there. This is a great story, enjoy...