CNNMoney.com > Small Business > Entrepreneurial Superstars
How Chez Panisse began
When Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse in Berkeley in 1971, she wasn't trying to start a food revolution. Here's how her neighborhood restaurant became the epicenter of the organic movement.
An education in France and California
Alice Waters never ate in a restaurant until she went to France in her junior year of college. "That's when my whole world opened up," she recalls. "Everything was so beautiful there. I even remember my first French meal: a brothy root-vegetable soup with lots of parsley and garlic. It was amazing."
After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, Waters became a teacher at a local Montessori school. She loved the philosophy -- Montessori is "all about educating the senses and learning by doing" -- but decided she wasn't a very good teacher.
"My students -- four-year-olds -- wanted to know everything, and I felt I didn't have the answers," she says. "So I quit and opened a restaurant, borrowing cash from my father, who mortgaged his house."
NEXT: A rocky debut
LAST UPDATE: Aug 31 2009 | 7:44 PM ET
More Galleries
We love our weirdo regional sodas. While they may have local roots, many have joined beverage empires. More
Stars ranging from royalty to Playboy playmates have pitched for the weight-loss company over the years. See some of the most memorable Weight Watchers celebrity spokespeople. More
Sponsors
