Foodie fans of fine French cuisine from all over have been known to schedule trips to the Bay Area just to get a table at Berkeley's Chez Panisse . Alice Waters , the celbrated owner of Chez Panisse, started the business back in 1971. She has been honored with the prestigious James Beard Award, a Bon Apetit lifetime achievement award, and most recently accolades from the French Legion of Honor, for her contributions to cuisine . Getting the food right was one challenge. But the bigger challenge was learning how to run a business. Waters shares her Startup Story at CNNMoney , and she says the beginning, as with most startups, was rocky: "In no time I had 50 employees, and I didn't know how to manage any of them," Waters says. "We were open seven days a week from 7:30 a.m. to 2 a.m., serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. It was too much. We were hemorrhaging money. I had to lay off half of my staff, and we stopped serving breakfast and closed on Sundays." She turned things around, and the business started to make a profit...after eight years. Read How Chez Panisse Began here .