A former owner of The Penguin looked to raise money on GoFundMe to re-open the restaurant. Photo by ThatGuyDoug/Flickr

As the margins on restaurant profits continue getting smaller, business owners have to get creative to ensure a profit. One trend is toward fast-casual restaurants, which don’t require investing in a large front-of-house staff. Something else we’ve seen lately is crowdfunding.

One of The Penguin’s former owners, Brian Rowe, made news this summer when he announced he would be reopening the restaurant in NoDa’s Area 15. He launched a GoFundMe called “Bring Back the Bird” seeking $50,000 in donations to help open a reincarnation of The Penguin, called The Bird Bones Café.

“This is Brian Rowe, aka BRowe, former jarhead and former owner of The Penguin in Plaza Midwood,” the GoFundMe campaign reads. “We were there for a 10 year stretch, 2000-2010, here we are now, almost 10 years since we left, (which was not our idea), and I’d like to do it again with your help. If you liked The Penguin, then you’re going to love The Bird Bones Cafe.”

Despite the news spreading rapidly around Charlotte that The Penguin was coming back, donations only totaled in the thousands. A month after it was created, the GoFundMe was shut down.

“Due to circumstances beyond my control, I will not be able to do this project in this space. This is why I’m shutting down this GoFundMe. I will definitely be doing this project elsewhere……Carlos Espin and I are great friends and will continue to work together,” the final post reads.

Nearby, however, a more successful crowdfunding campaign had taken place. After two years in business, Bold Missy Brewing had seen an onslaught of misfortunes that made growth slower than the brewery had hoped. Construction in the area has continually cut off the main roads leading into the brewery, which is just past NoDa. There have also been several break-ins there — two even happened within a single month.

Money spent on repairing shattered windows meant money that couldn’t go toward purchasing more kegs, or saving up for a canning line. And without that additional equipment, Bold Missy couldn’t add more accounts. So earlier this year, they kicked off a month-long crowdfunding campaign.

“For us, we’re in a place where we are growing and we’re getting more traction and we have so many great things coming up, but it definitely is competitive and we wanted to see if there was any way for us to have any additional income,” says Bold Missy tap room manager and marketing manager Lybbi Roth. “We can keep what we’re doing and coming out with our beers and not really growing, I guess, but if we want to be able to grow like we planned to, we need to put more beer in cans and get more accounts, and do all that, and keep up with our demand. That takes money.”

As a female-owned and operated brewery, Bold Missy launched their campaign on iFundWomen, a site that allows you to financially support female entrepreneurs. They invested in a video that told the story of the brewery as a way to introduce potential donors to Bold Missy, and billed the donations as a booster club. They used their popular branding to their advantage, offering pint glasses and stickers at various price levels, and higher price points earning you experiences, such as the opportunity to create a beer for a $2,500 donation.

The campaign brought in nearly $20,000 — but Roth advises those interested in trying it out to know that putting together a successful fundraiser isn’t easy.

“It isn’t just you make a website and hold out your hand and people start pouring money in — it’s a lot of work,” she says.

Apart from building out the campaign, each of the booster club perks had to be shipped out from the brewery. For Bold Missy, success meant capitalizing on what makes the brewery stand out: that it’s the city’s only brewery owned and operated by women. And though they fell short of their $100,000 goal, the additional income will help them keep up in an extremely competitive Charlotte market. Roth’s advice to others in the same position is to give potential supporters a reason to care about your business.

“It’s not a quick, easy thing to do — it takes a lot of work and a lot of perseverance,” Roth says. “But I think if somebody has that brand in place and it’s something that people can really relate to, it’s definitely a great option for you as long as people understand there’s not a magic, you press upload and the dollar signs start rolling in.” —Kristen Wile