
Juice Joint is a long-established breakfast and lunch restaurant serving the downtown Oakland business district. The business was established in this location in 2003. Nohemi Perez, Owner, needed funding to upgrade equipment and remodel the space after 15 years of use. She approached a community lender, Main Street Launch, who asked her to put together a detailed proposal with financial projections regarding how the loan funds would be spent and the benefits the funding would provide to the business. At this point, Ms. Perez requested assistance from the Alameda County SBDC to help her prepare a loan proposal, and Mari Lovalvo, an SBDC Spanish speaking advisor, was assigned to work with her. With Mari's assistance, Nohemi built the business description and financial projections to back the loan proposal, and it was submitted to Main Street Launch. Within a month, $50,000 of funds were closed, and the process to upgrade the restaurant was started.