Cheryl Wakerhauser is the owner of Pix Patisserie and the driving force behind some of Portland’s most delectable gourmet chocolates and pastries. In addition to drawing from her education in the south of France to develop new desserts, Cheryl manages two Pix locations: the fun, cozy SE Division shop and the chic, distinctly old-world North Williams location. Cheryl has shrugged conventional business wisdom for much of her career as an entreprenesses, but she still manages to come out on top. From the importance of events and delegation to the relaxing effects of a morning run (or a month in Mexico!), Cheryl has some great tips for any business owner.

What was expanding to a second location like and what was that transition like for you?
Nothing I plan ever happens. My plan was to open a second location and close the first location. The first location is very small and I wanted something bigger. At this location I got to build it to my specifications. The kitchen is the right size, the dining room is the right size. So that was the plan, to open this one and eventually close the other one. But the other one is still doing well and people still enjoy going there, so why close it? I guess the biggest thing with opening a second one is trying to be two places at once and all of a sudden your staff doubles and everything is double. You’re already working sixty hours a week and now you have two locations. How do you manage that? You have to be able to delegate things. Yeah, it’s hard. But it’s going well. Right now we’re going into five years [at the second location]. I don’t want to open another one, but two is manageable.

With all that’s going on, what’s your favorite way to relax?
My favorite way to relax is actually going out for a run. I try to do it every morning if I can. It doesn’t happen every morning but that’s my goal. I don’t like to schedule appointments in the morning because if I’m rushed I won’t go for my run and that’s my stress reliever. I can think about whatever I want to think about.

What’s your favorite thing about owning your own business?
My favorite thing is I can do what I want to do. But that’s a catch-22: you’re also responsible. I could say, “okay, let’s close the restaurant. Everyone’s stressed out, let’s take a break” but that’s gonna be beneficial for the restaurant or for the employees that don’t get a paycheck. I would say “I don’t want to work this weekend” but if I did work I could be creating a new product that would bring in new business. Everything you do, you have to think of the consequences. At the same time though, I can do whatever I want. If you work for somebody else and you have this grand idea and they don’t think it’s such a grand idea, you don’t even get to try it. At least I can try it and if it’s not a good idea I can stop.

What’s the inspiration for your desserts and how do you go about developing those?
Everyone asks this question and I never have an answer for it. It’s either based on a name, an ingredient, or whatever. For instance, the Shazam. I was running to the Beastie Boy’s song and they yell “shazam!” and I thought “that’s a great name for a dessert.” How that became what it did I don’t really remember, but I like to kind of pick an idea or a flavor first and then go from there.

And what’s your personal favorite?
I think my personal favorite is always the one that I haven’t had for a while. I’m really into the salty ones, of course. As far as the chocolates go, I’m a big fan of the Mendiant, which is a dark chocolate studded with dried fruit and nuts and a little sea salt. It’s by far not our most popular one, our Fleur-de-Sel Caramel one is, but I really like the Mendiant. Also, when you do the pairing, you have your favorite chocolate, but when you also have a drink that complements it, like with the Mendiant, a cognac or armangac, it just makes it a more interesting experience.

You guys host a lot of events, how do you like to use those for your business?
Well, I think that events are, I don’t necessarily want to say crucial, but so great for the business. We get a lot of press that we don’t pay for because we’re doing something new. We’re doing something good, but we’re also doing something new and interesting a lot of the time. If you just have a restaurant, you need to do something where people will be looking in the paper and they’ll think “oh yeah, I haven’t been there in a while!” I don’t think paying for advertising really works so well: it’s expensive and basically everyone that’s reading that knows that you paid for that advertising. If you can do something interesting, you can get someone to write about you. Events are more fun for the staff, but they’re definitely more work. I can see why someone wouldn’t want to do it, but that’s kind of a big part of what I do every day: event coordinating. Events make it more fun and interesting.

Do you like to do community involvement and charitable events?
Yeah. We do a lot of donations and a lot of off-site charitable events. As far as on-site charitable events– not so many, but we’re always doing all these off-site kinds of tastings and things. Like, we’ll go and set up a table to give away 800 desserts and all the ticket sales go to a particular charity. Those kind of things are definitely important in getting that press that we don’t pay for. Not only that, but when you do that, people who have never been to your restaurant are coming by and tasting your product. Number one, they enjoy it and number two, they want to thank you for supporting the same charity and then you get customers coming into your place. We also do lots of gift certificates to local school auctions and things like that.

What illusion do you think that a lot of aspiring business owners have about owning their own business?
Well, mine was that I could be open whenever I wanted and if I was tired I could just close, but that doesn’t really work. Once you have this clientele, they don’t want to come by when you say you’re open nine to five and you’re not. You kinda have to stick to your hours. That’s a pet peeve of mine now when people say that they’re open to ten and it’s 9:30 and they’re closing up. I think a lot of people have this illusion that it’ll just be fun. It’s a lot of work and you have to be the kind of person that’s able to handle the stress and work long hours and deal with not having slept in a long time. How you do that is you set a goal and you see a light at the end of the tunnel and you’re working towards that. It’s more fun once you get into it, but I remember nights when I was crying and crying because I was so tired but I had to make ten more cakes.

When you started out, you didn’t have a business plan; you were just going on credit. Why do you think that worked out for you?
Well, times are definitely different now. They won’t just send you ten credit cards in the mail with 0% interest for a year. I was lucky that people were doing that at that time and I’m awful lucky that I know how to handle money. I’ve been managing money all my life. Some people, you give them a credit card and they’ll go and immediately max it out. I kind of had a plan. But no, I didn’t have a business plan and I didn’t plan on opening my business when I did. I was working somewhere else and I got laid off after September 11th and there was really nothing to apply for. So the options were try to move somewhere else or start your own thing because I had this idea in the back of my head and I was already selling at the farmers’ market. So I just kind of jumped into it. I guess it was good because some people, once they finally get the stable job with the health insurance, they don’t want to quit and they’re gonna regret it. Well, the credit card thing worked for me.

A couple years ago, you were going to sell Pix, but didn’t, obviously. Can you talk about that process a bit?
Yeah, that was, like everything, a learning process. I felt like I needed to move on and do some other creative things. I did this, I started it and made it work, I accomplished it, and now I felt like I needed to start something else. I can’t do that and still give this place as much attention as it needs. So, the plan was to sell, but then the economy went south and I had this broker I was working with and that was an interesting experience. I kind of felt like he was also working with someone else. If he sold the business, he would get a percentage, but he also knew the economy was bad so if he could sell it to anybody for whatever price, I think he wanted to do that. I had to get myself out of that situation and I learned a few things about choosing brokers. The one thing he told me was to not tell anyone I was selling, but I didn’t want to do that. Pix has a good name and I didn’t want to keep people in the dark and I wanted my employees to know what was going on. They were a little scared at first, and were thinking that I was going to sell the next week, but after a month everyone settled down and everyone was just doing their job. Once I decided to tell people and sent out some press releases, it was all over the blogs, and I had the Oregonian and Willamette Week calling me, and then I had ten people call my broker. To me, I felt like telling people was a good idea. I usually don’t follow the model of running a business.

What were your plans for after your sold Pix?
I was going to go to Mexico for about six months or something like that. Basically I was going to take a break and relax. I’m trying to do some of these things even though I didn’t sell. I turned my garage into a commercial test kitchen so I was going to use that in different ways depending on what I chose to do. I could use that to do consulting, to do classes, to do R&D. Then I really wanted to go into a food travel venture. I’m trying to write a book for food types and chefs who have learned about French food all their life but have never been. A lot of people have this notion that in France everyone is rude, but that’s really not the case. People just don’t know how to act there. Let’s say you only have one week in Europe. How do you maximize your time and appetite to see, do, taste as much as possible? So, that’s something I’m trying to work on now as well as keep the business going.

What comes next for Pix?
I’m trying to find some staff that really wants to take on some extra responsibilities and stay on. Possibly a general manager, but I just have to feel that out when I find the right person. Basically, I’m trying to get into the kitchen more rather than be a general manager myself. It’s hard to do.