Episode Details

In this episode, we sit down with Dana Dumas, founder and CEO of SugarJam The Southern Kitchen and Soul Fire Tacos, to talk about the 15-year journey from selling cookies at farmers markets to building multiple restaurant concepts in Scottsdale.

Dana shares the pivots that shaped her business, from learning how to market her first brick-and-mortar and growing a massive catering operation to navigating COVID and eventually realizing that brunch was the future of SugarJam. We also get into the importance of knowing your numbers, building systems, empowering your team, and why successful businesses have to continually evolve.

Whether you're a restaurant owner, entrepreneur, or someone with an idea you've been thinking about pursuing, Dana's story is packed with lessons learned from actually doing the work. It's a great reminder that scaling isn't always about opening more locations. Sometimes it's simply about taking the next step, learning, adapting, and building something that lasts.