Laura Warren and Ricardo Barba are separated by gender, ethnicity and 160 miles of Interstate 70.
But they share at least two things in common: a love of entrepreneurship, and money in the pocket from the Boston Beer Company Inc.
Warren and Barba are the first two Colorado recipients of startup loans offered by the maker of Samuel Adams, in partnership with nonprofit microlender Accion USA.
Financed by $2 million in capital from Boston Beer, the program provides lending for new food and beverage businesses that can’t find financing through conventional channels.
Warren, of Glenwood Springs, and Barba, of Denver, followed similar paths — a series of rejections by bank loan officers before they heard about the Boston Beer/Accion program.
“I was pretty much at my wit’s end,” Warren said of her and her husband’s quest for a loan to open a Glenwood sports bar. “We knew we had a great idea, but we couldn’t quite get the financing together.”
Now, with $15,000 in hand from the loan program and about three times that in personal investment, she plans to open Big Daddy’s Sports Bar on May 5.
Boston Beer, the nation’s largest craft brewer, rolled out the “Brewing the American Dream” initiative in 2008 in New England. Since its inception, the fund has issued 150 loans and provided business coaching to about 3,000 small-business owners.
The program’s expansion to Colorado was formally announced earlier this week.
Other new markets this year will include southern California, Washington, D.C., and parts of Texas.
Barba has worked in the restaurant business for 16 years, and had long held a desire to operate his own Mexican food truck.
Like Warren, he ran into a succession of rejections at banks. Then he recalled seeing a television ad for Accion’s small-business loan and counseling program.
His $8,000 loan from Boston Beer/Accion provided about 30 percent of the capital he needed to get started. Since April 1, the TacoCenter of Los Altos has been serving tacos, burritos and tortas six days a week at the intersection of Parker Road and Iliff Avenue in southeast Denver.
“I’m not making a lot of money so far, but it’s paying its own bills, and I really think this thing will work,” Barba said.
Loans from the program average $7,000, with typical interest rates ranging from 10.5 to 12.5 percent.
Jim Koch, founder and chairman of Boston Beer, said the idea for the loan initiative was based on his personal experience.
“I started Sam Adams 28 years ago in my own kitchen,” he said. “I wished I’d had access to loan money and solid advice on the nuts and bolts of starting a business.”
Koch was in Denver this week to offer advice at a “speed coaching” seminar.
The business-coaching part of the program — offered free to prospective business owners even if they’re not accepted for a loan — is vital to aspiring entrepreneurs, Koch said.
“There’s a lot I had to learn from trial and error, and there was a lot of error involved,” he said. “If I’d had 20 minutes of advice from somebody who knew what they were doing, it would have made a big difference for me.”
Steve Raabe: 303-954-1948 or sraabe@denverpost.com
