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Kimberly Collett

We hate to tell you: Olive an urban dive to close

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We didn’t want to report this news….

Olive, an urban dive, will take its final bow on October 10th, 2015.

Owner Kimberly Collett announced today that due to the impasse reached with the building’s owner regarding repair and maintenance issues, the impact it’s
had on the staff and business, and changes in her own personal goals, that she will let the curtain fall, instead of renewing Olive’’s lease, which ends in November.

We tried everything we could to find another feasible way to keep Olive in Dayton, but now that the decision is made, we’re announcing the close in advance because we wanted to give our staff time to find new work, help our farmers and vendors adjust, and to allow our guests to visit a few last times and use their gift certificates.olive6

Collett attributes the success of Olive to its family of employees, especially over the last year as she was spread thin, since her partner in all things, Bobby, passed away last spring. “”Our Lead Chef, David took the reigns and led Olive to a new level of efficiency and the food and creativity coming out of our kitchen team has never been better. Lead server, Sandy, who has always been the heart of Olive, held the team together even as she’s been starting her own fashion business. The whole team really stepped up and kept Olive humming and growing from day to day without me, which makes this decision even harder than it would be otherwise.”

“It’’s been a great run, and we’’re so thankful to Dayton and all our die hard regulars you’ve helped make us so much more than we ever dreamed we would be! We’’re stopping at the top of our game, which is a hard, hard thing, but change is inevitable and if I’’ve realized anything this year, it’s that life is uncertain, you’’ve got to make the most of it and choosing to let go is sometimes the hardest, bravest, best thing you can do.”

Olive, an urban dive will continue normal hours through October 10th.
Lunch Tues-Fri 11-3p, Dinner Thurs-Sat 5-9:30p, Brunch Sat 10-3p (Closed
Sunday & Monday) For reservations please call 937.222.DIVE (3483).

Olive, an Urban Dive Wins National Grant

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olive6The Hobart Center for Foodservice Sustainability (HCFS) awarded its annual $5,000 grant to Olive, an Urban Dive in Dayton, Ohio, in recognition of the restaurant’s unwavering commitment to foodservice sustainability initiatives and the Dayton community.  Olive’s impressive commitments to sustainability include: investing in equipment to reduce energy and water use, focusing on recycling, composting and cross utilizing ingredients to greatly reduce daily trash and food waste yields, and managing their own farm, as well as, relationships with over 50 local farmers for a true Farm-­‐to-­‐Fork program. This marks the seventh year for the HCFS grant, which is awarded to a business or organization judged to have the best-­‐executed foodservice sustainability project.

 

olive5“It is rare to find management and staff equally committed to their goal of providing high quality food following sustainable practices,” said Richard Young, Senior Engineer and Director of Education for PG&E Food Service Technology Center, and HCFS fellow. “At Olive, this is the norm. The owner practices what she preaches, and as a result, all of the staff have completely bought in. Not only are they limiting their impact on the environment, they are building into the local economy.”

Olive’s owner, Kimberly, leased the old Wympee Burger diner in downtown Dayton, OH, olive1after its 72 years of operating as a greasy burger joint were over. She and her friends and family gutted the entire building by hand, replacing all mechanicals, interior walls, putting new HVAC equipment on the roof to make room for an ADA compliant bathroom, even excavating the entire floor in the kitchen to eliminate floor drains that had led to the rain water run-­‐off sewers without anyone realizing since the building’s construction in 1938.

“We did everything we could to save labor and financial resources, while recycling and responsibly scrapping original materials and finding creative re-­‐use for others,” said Kimberly Collett, owner of Olive. “The counter is made of wood from a tree my grandfather cut down 60 years ago, and we cut used bottles to make light shades. We even made our own tables out of poplar leftover from a wood auction, installed the cork flooring, and made our own ceiling tiles.”

Not only does this mindset pay dividends in fantastic culinary creations, after two years Olive4of being open, Olive was completely debt-­‐free, a rare achievement in the restaurant industry. Another huge accomplishment – Olive’s commitment to recycling and cross utilizing natural ingredients and composting means they only throw away 6-­‐14 pounds of waste per day. The commitment to sustainability is not without challenges, but the staff and chefs at Olive take it all in stride and embrace the unique opportunity to create new specials daily, with whatever they are able to source locally.

“We are given a lot of freedoms that most commercial kitchens do not experience,” said David Kerg, chef. “Olive is a chef’s playground!” “This is a one-­‐in-­‐a-­‐million business,” said team member Sandy Bowden. “we enjoy telling people about it. It is so satisfying to make people happy and to see their eyebrows go up when they taste something. Serving people a great product is very rewarding for us.” Kimberly Collett, Olive owner, will serve as an HCFS Fellow for 2014/2015 and assist in selecting next year’s HCFS grant recipient.

 

Map the Plan for Your Business Idea!

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969528_165891800246768_1535312209_nJoin us for 2 valuable hours focusing on making your business a viable dream come true: Dive in with Kimberly Collett, Olive, an urban dive: Creating your business and financial plan. This class is for folks that have done their homework, flushed out their ideas, and are ready to put it on paper. It’s time to get serious about your business idea! Real regional insight, valuable tools and templates, a chance to ask questions and an opportunity for follow-up on your progress 6-8 weeks later. Ready to take the plunge into your first venture? Find out what it really takes. Get started on a solid foundation with the help of Kimberly Collett, entrepreneur and restaurateur, who will show you how to create a business plan and a detailed three year financial plan. Bring your laptop (if possible) and current plan if you have one, or any figures you’ve pulled together so far. Kimberly will provide a 3-year financial plan excel template and show you how to tweak it for your own business -a priceless tool that will bring your business plans to a boil! Attendees will be invited to a follow-up class to check progress and get feedback.

Class takeaways:

Realize the truth about planning and what it means in the real world.
Understand why you need a business plan AND a detailed financial plan.
Discuss possible funding for your idea.
Legal name searches and how to claim your domain name.
Customize a catch-all business plan template to your style and your idea.

Create a 3 year financial plan. A deep-dive exercise that shows what you’re in for, including:

Facts about legal licensing and fees.
Laws and taxes you are expected to know (without being told) and will be held accountable for.
The true cost of payroll.
Class includes 30 minutes of question and answer time. Limited Enrollment: 20

About Kimberly Collett:

“All the things I picked up in life came together in one little restaurant.”

Kimberly has a passion for building businesses. In 2011 she opened Olive, an urban dive, then her own construction company, Dayton Tradesource, and most recently broke ground on a collaboration project, The Barrel House. Olive is a locally sourced, Mediterranean/American restaurant offering foods inspired by Kimberly’s back-packing travels around Europe after high school (20 some years ago). Collett currently mentors for the Entrepreneurial Capstone Class at The University of Dayton, is a voting member on the Downtown Priority Board, and an Aileron Course for Presidents Alum. Synergy Incubators gives Kimberly an avenue to reach a classroom of budding entrepreneurs interested in learning how to turn ideas into brick-and-mortar businesses.

Celebrating Olive-an urban dive!

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oliveurbandiveIn celebration of Eat Local Month we are sharing this post from Olive – an urban dive (originally posted on their Facebook page).

it’s a sunny day to share some stats! 2012 Olive financial report! Olive runs on a strictly cash basis, all our farmers/bakers/purveyors are paid COD, cash on delivery (or check) and our larger suppliers are paid once a week, also COD. We will be debt free by August if not before!!!!

we do local and here are some ballpark numbers to prove it!558448_361852503883424_311298282_n
of the $142,000 we spent on food/beverage products in 2012, $76,400 went directly to local farmers and purveyors pockets, that grew or made the product here, another $46,000 went to local, independent shops and purveyors that purchased import products (fish accounts for almost half of that, veggies and fruits we can’t get here, or produce grown by others that we can’t prove without a doubt was grown locally, though we know a good portion of it was)

we paid our staff over $170,000 (and another $42,000 in matching taxes) and since most of our staff buy and support local too, most of that went right back into our local economy! Over $4000 in donations of gift certificates, food or services were given to local charities and events, and we gave just under $4,000 in cash discounts back to our guests for not using credit cards! (we lost over $9,000 to credit card fees!)

we spent over $15,000 with local service companies (Morgans/MegaCity/Progressive Refrigeration/various local hood cleaning/etc.) and $12,000 with local, independent equipment and smallwares suppliers (Bushongs/Gem City Key Shop/Arrow Wine/Belmont Party Supply)

540159_519580784769509_2047500238_nand… drumroll please… we paid off $22,000 in promissory notes, put $6,000 back into our building and made a 4.8% net return all told!

From our research, successful restaurants in Ohio from $100k-$1M in sales typically return 3-5% (and for us there’s no alcohol sales to save us any errors!!) so we’re really running tight (that profit would practically all be gone if we didn’t do all our own social media, marketing, website building, ad design, printing, accounting, farm wrangling, most of our own maintenance and spent more than we had to on anything or bought fun stuff before we had the cash and therefore added interest payments).

it’s a ‘by the seat of our pants and sweat of our brow’ win! Of course, Kimberly will now have to pay income taxes on that small net gain, and it never really leaves Olive so it’s a tight game! yes… think twice before opening a restaurant people! if you don’t love it, don’t do it! … but we do love it and we’re pretty proud of the amount we’ve been able to put into our farmer’s pockets, so they in turn could buy more cows, turn some more land over, buy some more chickens, or just buy something locally made for themselves or go out to dinner at a local restaurant… oh, and pay more taxes. 😉

so thank you!!! to everyone who has supported our little dive by dining with us, sharing posts, spreading the word, writing a nice blog or review on yelp, urbanspoon or trip advisor, for bringing new guests to experience 559098_361841770551164_776315907_nour little dive, to every old and new independent business that chose downtown to plant their business, to all the employees that work and then play downtown, and to everyone that supports anything downtown or independent anywhere… it takes the impact of all of us dreaming, jumping, investing and spending our money here, separately and as a community, to make even one little 28 seat diner actually work! have an awesome day out there and remember it’s First Friday so enjoy downtown tonight!!! and thanks again!

 

Editors Note:  You can visit Olive at the corner of Third and Wayne downtown, but you’ll want to make a reservation- this place is packed most of the time!  Call 937-222-DIVE (3483).  And yes, they offer gluten free, paleo, vegetarian and vegan meals!

The Barrel House – Coming Soon To Third And Wayne

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The future home of The Barrel House

There’s been a bit of a buzz starting downtown about what’s going on behind the stark exterior wall at 417 E. Third Street. It’s a building you barely take note of, being attached to the long beige, stucco expanse of the KK building. A storefront that once existed, has been completely stucco’d over and painted gray, just sitting there waiting, right across the street from the old Wympee Diner on Third… another building that just a couple years ago, looked just as abandoned and neglected.

Kimberly Collett had a vision for what that old greasy, empty diner could be and we followed her through eight months of gutting and remodeling before she finally opened Olive, an urban dive, inside it, leaving the exterior exactly as it’s been since 1938. Olive is just over a year and a half into their stride and it just keeps getting better… from the quality of the dishes, to the size of their following. And one day, in a flash of inspiration, while standing in a shop in South Carolina, Kimberly had an idea for the building just across the street, that has stood empty, for the last ten years.  For the last seven months she’s been honing the concept, working with the city and the building’s owner, Mike Wenzler, to pave the way for The Barrel House.  But knowing she had her hands full with Olive and her construction company, Dayton Tradesource,  she had to bring in someone else to  partner and manage this new idea and asked her cousin, Jeff Heater, a craft beer enthusiast, to come home from Maine and lead the charge.

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Jeff signing the lease for the space.

They describe The Barrel House as, “a coffee shop for beer, no coffee… just beer”, though it’s really much more. Once complete, you’ll enter the new storefront and be immediately greeted by a ‘coffee shop feeling’ lounge, with deep couches and vintage furniture. As you move further in, the space transitions into a retail shop filled with shelves and custom displays of bottled beer and wine, there’s also space for local art, beer and wine related locally made gifts, party supplies, chips, salsas, and hot sauces. Then there’s the centerpiece on the back wall, 15-20 taps for popular and eclectic, craft micro-brews from around the world, that you can carry-out in growlers.

Originally, The Barrel House was just going to be a carry-out and community area, but with no carry-out beer licenses left downtown, The Barrel House will be applying for a full restaurant liquor license, marrying the two businesses together in a symbiotic relationship, where Olive will supply the food portion of light fare and desserts and The Barrel House will be an overflow and waiting space for Olive guests, as well as an old world style, community pub, where you can meet friends for a carry-out lunch from Olive, hold a client meeting over a pint of beer, or just sit in the sunbeams streaming through the windows with a good book and a glass of wine. There will be tastings, gathering events, and collaborations, with as many local vendors as possible

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Early demolition stage of the space

If all goes well, Heater hopes to open The Barrel House in sync with patio season, but having just been through this two years ago, Kimberly smiles as she looks at Jeff and says, ‘I’ve learned not to say when and Jeff watched everything I went through with Olive, so…” and Jeff finishes the sentence with, “we’ll see!”

In talking with Jeff, it’s easy to hear the enthusiasm in his voice.  He’s been working on site,  doing the demolition, tearing down drywall and plaster down to reveal brick.  He’s found three different electrical panels that reveal some of the history of the building, i.e. labels for a jukebox and bar in one and in another bar lights and a back bar.    While tearing out some old shelving he even found a phone number for Heidelberg Distributing written on the wall.  So while not the first bar that will inhabit this space, this rendition won’t be your average neighborhood bar either.  Heater is looking forward to sharing his love of craft beer and expand the palate of his guests.

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The most up-to-date picture of the building of The Barrel House

Jeff’s excitement when talking about Ohio beers is contagious.  His knowledge of the Ohio beer scene was honed while spending 9 years living in Columbus and  he is looking forward to being able to showcase some of the specialty brews from places like the Columbus Brewing Company  and even some Cleveland breweries.  There are still a lot of hoops to jump through, but soon enough, Jeff will be inviting us to grab a seat on the couch, dial up the wifi, sample a Saison (his favorite beer style) and become part of the casual, comfy community he and Kimberly hope to create on their little corner of Third and Wayne.

While you’re waiting for them to open be sure and like their Facebook page so you can watch the progress of the construction and be in the know for their opening plans.