you have your own [business] for sure.” Perez says she always thanks the community members who keep coming in. “Sonoma is a very supportive town to local businesses,” she says. “That’s one of the things I like about Sonoma.”
Jacob’s Restaurant is at 1266 Broadway in Sonoma. Call 707-996-4024 or visit orderjacobsrestaurant.com.
Cynthia Caughie, Homerun Pizza in Santa Rosa Cynthia Caughie began waiting tables at Homerun Pizza in the summer of 2005, shortly after giving birth to her first daughter. Little did she know that the part-time server job would lead to a spark that would ignite her entrepreneurial spirit. “It was a good foot in the door,” Caughie says. “It was perfect for me.” The pizza restaurant had started doing breakfast and Caughie was working a few shifts. Before long she was taking on more shifts and more responsibility, basically helping manage it. “I had always run it kind of as my own,” Caughie says. She says she grew to love the business and after a few years began to think about one day owning it. However, her three daughters were still very young and so she waited. In the summer of 2018 Caughie got her chance to purchase the restaurant that had become like a second home. She had just lost her house in the Tubbs fire—and so had the owner of Homerun Pizza. He was ready to sell, and her perspective had changed. “I figured I had already lost everything, and I had loved Homerun Pizza so much,” she says. She didn’t have the money to purchase the business, but wanted to see if there was a way. She went to Exchange Bank, which helped make her dream a reality. “They’re local and they want to see you succeed,” she says. “That really pushed my belief in shopping local and supporting local.” “As I look back on it, I didn’t understand how much of an accomplishment it was then,” Caughie says about being a sole, woman owner of a business. “I do now, just because of everything that I’ve gone through.” Like other small businesses, Homerun Pizza struggled through the Kincade fire, PG&E shutoffs and the pandemic. Caughie praised her employees who have helped keep customers coming back. She says the local community helped keep them alive. “The pandemic was a scary time, and people were amazing,” she says. “They would come in once a week and they’d be
Cynthia Caughie is branding the tasty Knuckle Ball as Homerun Pizza’s signature dish. (Photo courtesy Homerun Pizza]
36 NorthBaybiz
June 2024
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