One in 10 Americans owns a small business. In the private sector, they create half the gross domestic output, employ half the workers and pay nearly half of total payroll. They are a piece of the American dream, promising the hope for anyone to strike gold.
Vlad Shapiro, 30, immigrated from Belarus as a boy. Now a U.S. citizen, he cut his teeth organizing events during the dot-com boom, then managed restaurants in San Francisco. Last year, he decided to buy an assembly kitchen franchise from Super Suppers, the largest operator of the new concept business.
After a long initial round of paperwork, Shapiro rolled up his sleeves for months of construction to transform a Concord furniture shop into a space where people can socialize while they make gourmet dishes to take home for later cooking.In February, the smell of food was still a long way off; his new shop was being thoroughly gutted.
