The Farm on the Roof by Anastasia Cole Plakias

Author:Anastasia Cole Plakias
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-03-16T11:17:09+00:00

6

WE ARE FARMILY

Growing Our Team

If you’d told any of us when we started Brooklyn Grange that forming an LLC with people is basically tantamount to becoming a family, we might not have signed the operating agreement. We’re all incredibly different people, with totally divergent styles of doing business. Sometimes it seems that the only characteristics we share are that we’re fiercely opinionated and bullishly willful. But the truth is, we share something far more important than closely held beliefs: we respect one another. We all realize the farm wouldn’t be what it is without the contributions each of us has made, and it’s that shared commitment and mutual trust that makes us work well as a team—or as we like to call ourselves, a farmily.

When we were planning the farm, we were a team of five: Ben, Gwen, myself, Chris, and Brandon. Once the farm was built, Chris and Brandon had to return to running Roberta’s, which had become something of a critical hit and was expanding rapidly to meet the growing demand of the community. And besides, Chris had always been clear that he was planning on taking a step back once we were up and running, as Roberta’s kept him plenty busy, and he was less interested in operating the farm than he was in getting the project off the ground. Some folks like making deals and starting projects, others are more day-to-day operations types; Chris was definitely the former. But even though the two aren’t involved in managing the business, Chris and Brandon have remained in our orbit as advisors, and the restaurant is a valuable account for us.

After the Roberta’s boys departed, Ben, Gwen, and I divvied up operational responsibilities and put a labor plan into action. Ben was our head farmer and president of the company; I handled communications, public programming, and events (basically, external affairs); and Gwen oversaw facilities, office management, and accounting—the latter responsibility being one she took on gamely, if not quite enthusiastically. She wasn’t exactly thrilled to keep spreadsheets of our financials, set up a bank account, or deposit checks every week, but someone had to do it, and we didn’t have the budget to hire anyone. When you’re starting a business, there are a million things that need to get done. To that end, the aforementioned “job duties” didn’t even begin to cover the range of activities for which each of us was responsible. Gwen and I were out in the field, seeding and harvesting with Ben, on a daily basis. We all manned the farmer’s market tables, and Gwen ran deliveries in her pickup truck from time to time. Ben helped Gwen with accounting, keeping a close eye on the books, invoicing all the sales, and chasing down outstanding debts in person when needed. We all wore a lot of hats, and still do. The phrase “That’s not my job” never entered our lexicon.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have room in the budget for Gwen or me to draw a salary—which we had known heading into the enterprise.

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