A fig grows in Sonoma

(FSB Magazine) -- When we met Sondra Bernstein, she was so busy running The Girl & the Fig restaurant in Sonoma, Calif., The Fig Cafe in nearby Glen Ellen, and two newly opened ventures - a bed and breakfast and a food store - that she longed for more free time ("Get Your Life Back," October 2006). We hoped this follow-up might find her relaxing in Provence. Hardly. Today she's added a catering firm to her collection of businesses (thegirlandthefig.com) and is about to launch a wine line. Companywide sales, which were about $5 million in 2006, should hit $6.5 million this year, she reports. But earnings, which were nearly $250,000 in 2006, are flat because of startup costs for the new line extensions.

Since the Makeover, sales at The Girl & the Fig are up 15%, she says, and have doubled at The Fig Cafe, her more casual eatery.

One consultant recommended creating separate LLCs for each of the businesses (Bernstein now uses one company) to see which lines do the best. "We didn't do it," she says. "The businesses are so intertwined that dividing them would create hassles."

Bernstein has solved problems with her once-unprofitable line of fig and nut compotes. An FSB consultant pointed out that she was pricing them too low and paying distributors too much to sell them in food stores nationwide. She now sells directly to storeowners, and the line is profitable, she says.

Will Bernstein ever slow down? Don't bet on it. She spent a March trip to France working. "We ran some cooking classes there, and I was always on."