Launch SA Dishes Out Delicious Offerings at Summer Dinner
Photos by Jonathan Guajardo - Editor, SA Sentinel.
May 6, 2019 - Brick, Southtown San Antonio
Article By: Jonathan Guajardo - Editor, SA Sentinel
Ryan Salts speaks at Launch SA’s Summer Dinner. (Photo by Jonathan Guajardo - Editor, SA Sentinel.)
Within an area known as a prominent hub of San Antonio culinary locales, Launch SA held their Break Fast & Launch Summer Dinner Day at Brick at Blue Star. Surrounded by established hip restaurants, hopeful newcomers to the food and beverage industry displayed their offerings to hungry patrons ready to get their fill of the future of San Antonio cuisine.
“So the Break Fast & Launch Demo day is the end cap of our Break Fast & Launch accelerator. It’s the first of its kind accelerator in the nation. It’s a culinary business accelerator. It’s 10 weeks. We do it twice a year and it’s meant for culinary entrepreneurs of many different segments,” described Ryan Salts, Director of Launch SA. “It can be food truck catering, it can be brick and mortar, it can be a food product, it can be food tech. If it has food in it I think we can take it.”
Jennifer Funke and Steve LaFlam stand in front of their booth at Launch SA’s Summer Dinner. (Photo by Jonathan Guajardo - Editor, SA Sentinel.)
While incubator participants passed out free samples to Brick’s patrons, visitors congregated within the halls of the venue to discuss the veritable array of tastes offered. Carrying canned beer and plastic cups filled with wine provided by Brick’s front bar, attendees made their way from table to table, giving each vendor the chance to properly pitch their offerings.
One vendor in attendance, LaFunke Brewing Company, described their participatory progress in the program and why they chose to join this latest cohort of Break Fast and Launch companies. “San Antonio is so rich in culture and so we’re really embracing that, trying to find ways to bring that in,” said Jennifer Funke, co-owner of LaFunke Brewing Company.
Funke’s husband, Steve LaFlam, described their progress in the nation’s only culinary accelerator. “It’s been absolutely phenomenal. Just the networking among the students of meeting people going through the same thing that you’re going through,” stated LeFlam. “When you’re by yourself you kind of go through this thinking that you’re alone and you see all these other people here going through the exact same thing you are, and then them mentors come in and they answer the questions that you have.”