The Batata Shop got its start in Tawnya Clark's home while she was helping take care of her 99-year-old grandmother as a full-time caregiver. To help accommodate her grandmother's diet needs, Clark started making foods from sweet potatoes, such as waffles and pancakes.
"My grandmother really liked them," says Tawnya Clark, founder of
The Batata Shop. "I started making more of them for family and then friends. Then I started doing brunches and built it from there."
Batata is Spanish for sweet potato, and the word made Clark smile every time she heard it. After building the Batata Shop for the last 18 months, Clark plans to begin bringing her sweet potato comfort food for breakfast to the rest of Detroit. She has participated in
Bizdom U and is close to finishing the
FoodLab Detroit bootcamp.
The Batata Shop is currently looking for a commercial kitchen in Midtown so she can meet her growing demand. She is also looking to raise some seed capital through microloans or business plan competitions like
Hatch Detroit.
"We have a lot of resources available for entrepreneurs in Detroit," Clark says. "It's a great time to start a business here."
Source: Tawnya Clark, founder of The Batata Shop
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at
SEMichiganStartup.com.
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