Why I Launched Here

We asked entrepreneurs in all 50 Best Places how their hometown treats business owners. See how the cities stack up.

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Abilene, TX

Brian Green
Cypress Street Station

I'm a native Ohioan who moved to Texas in '87 to work for an aerospace firm. I'd opened a few restaurants in college, and when I finished my career in defense contracting I took an opportunity to renovate a historic building and put a restaurant in the first floor. It all came full circle back to restaurants -- you're serving one way or another.

At first, I employed culinary school grads from the Culinary Institute of America and Le Cordon Blue. Now we've turned into a location to handle those schools' externs. We're working with the culinary school at Texas State Technical College, so we can kind of grow our own workforce around here.

We also have a large staff of people who come through a local drug and alcohol rehabilitation program and are looking for a second chance. Some are going through the culinary arts program and getting degrees. We're active within the community.

You can find a little bit of everything in this particular small town. I was amazed at how diverse and how talented the restaurants are in this community. We're about to put in a brewpub concept -- it's the first microbrewery in a hundred-mile area. Our desserts are phenomenal. -Tina Peng

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