My name is Yuka Ioroi, and I founded Cassava in 2012 with my husband Kristoffer Toliao, Cassava’s executive chef. We’re a fine dining restaurant serving modern Californian cuisine in San Francisco.

Our cuisine is known for being creative, fresh, and colorful, while highlighting local and seasonal ingredients. Kris brings his unique perspective as a Filipino American chef with culinary experience in Mexican, Middle Eastern, Indian, French, Italian, and Japanese cuisines.

I bring my perspective as someone who grew up in Japan—one of our most popular meals (sometimes drawing 80% of our customers) is our Japanese Breakfast.

Possibly more so than our cuisine, we’re known for our strong stance on what an equitable restaurant operation looks like. Kris and I met when we were working at the same restaurant in SoCal. At the end of a 6-hour shift in the front-of-house, I would go home with hundreds of dollars in tips, while he made $13 an hour working 10 hours.

In urban Californian cities, this wage disparity disproportionately affects minority communities and newly-arrived immigrants. It’s seen as normal, but it shouldn’t be. Each team member is instrumental to creating a great restaurant experience.

We actively fight against this norm by paying all our staff equally. When I hire, I always say, “At this company, sommeliers and dishwashers get paid the same. How do you feel about that?”

This practice creates a better experience for our staff and customers. People who see that become our long-term team members and our regular customers.

For 9 years, Cassava operated in San Francisco’s Outer Richmond neighborhood. For those who aren’t familiar with SF, the Outer Richmond is closer to the Pacific Ocean than it is to downtown. It’s beautiful, but also quite cold and primarily residential. In its past life, the space had been a small real estate office and coffee shop—somehow, we’d turned that into a full-service restaurant.

When Covid hit, people wanted to dine outdoors, so we lost 70% of indoor seating. Yet, the cold microclimate in the Outer Richmond also made outdoor dining unappealing. We knew that because of our location alone, we wouldn’t be viable in the long term.

We started planning to move the restaurant to a grander, more central location in North Beach. Our previous loan officer recommended Wefunder. After learning about the company, I thought it would be cool to open up semi-ownership to different people who had supported us during these critical junctures.

Back in 2017, we had almost lost our restaurant as well, due to a crazy rainy season in March and our margins being razor thin. I went to GoFundMe and told our customers, “This is your restaurant as much as it is ours. If you don’t want to lose it, can you help?” We raised $50,000 in a month, which is a huge testament to the kindness of our regulars.

I felt that we’d be able to raise from our community again—but this time, we could turn them into actual owners.

The first thing I thought was, “I need a really good video.” I asked an amazing local YouTuber who runs a channel about the Richmond to collaborate. We produced a powerful video about why we needed to move to North Beach, emphasizing that you might need to travel farther to reach us now, but the alternative was not having us at all. Then I emailed nearly 10 years’ worth of guests with the campaign.

Our new location is at a bustling junction in North Beach. I put up a poster in the window with a huge QR code to learn more about the investment. The restaurants in the area are all classic Italian, so many people were excited about a fresh Californian cuisine that was still quintessentially San Franciscan moving into the neighborhood.

We have a set of regulars who are informally like VIP members at Cassava. They helped during the first GoFundMe, they come regularly, and we always gave them special treatment as a result. A lot of those people came onboard to the Community Round. At the end of the campaign, we were able to see that 91% of our investors were our regulars.

It's nice to be able to ask 207 people, "Hey, this is your restaurant too. Can you promote it? Bring your parties here!” That’s the best thing.

People feel proud to be part-owners—especially because our last place was so humble and this one is so grand. I want them to feel proud. I want them to bring their people here and show off the space.

Our investors are humble. When they bring their guests, most of them don’t want to say that they invested, so I do it for them. I’ll say, “Thank you for coming to their restaurant. They’re a first-round investor!” Then our investors get happy. We want them to feel special.

At the end of the day, building community is simple. We do the right thing. We pay people on time and fairly. We respond to every inquiry, treat our guests well, and make sure the quality is always high. We don’t cut corners. These are things that everybody should do.

With our regulars, I want to make them feel like part of the restaurant. Maybe I remember their favorite wine and suggest it in a great pairing. Or I have a new champagne and I want to give them the first taste for feedback.

Every time we’ve asked for help from our community, we’re in awe of how much people are willing to support us. Whenever I say “This is my restaurant, I’m the owner,” it’s only when I need to use the manager card on a difficult table. In reality, I know it belongs to all of us.