Business of the Year: Goodness Gracious Catering and Lauren Kershner

Goodness Gracious Catering owner Lauren Kershner wants to leave her stamp on Glen Ellen’s map whether it’s through catering, kombucha or community.

The Sonoma Valley Chamber of Commerce presented Kershner with the 2023 Sonoma Valley Business of the Year award for Goodness Gracious Catering on Friday, Jan. 5, for her leadership in the business community, dedication to her employees and her support of fellow small-business owners.

“We’re trying to put Glen Ellen on the map,” Kershner said. “I think it comes down to just helping the community, like I feel the better my businesses do, the bigger impact I can have.”

Kershner grew up in Fort Bragg where she sold blackberries as her first job at 15 years old. Her next job came as a restaurant busser, and she eventually made her way into the kitchen where she was inspired to serve high-quality food.

After graduating high school, Kershner went to le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Portland, Oregon, training in French culinary arts courses. Kershner earned top marks there and returned to Northern California upon graduation to work at Michelin-starred restaurants in Napa County.

“Then I saw Beltane Ranch, which is here in Glen Ellen — a very beautiful property and winery and inn — they were hiring an executive chef,” Kershner said. “I took that and moved over here. I've been in Sonoma ever since, and that was in 2014.”

Kershner founded Goodness Gracious Catering in December 2016 and continued working as a private chef for an “insane amount” of hours. But it was not until the pandemic when she reflected on her life and made “the switch” from chef to business owner.

She realized that being the owner of a catering business was more than cooking meals for private parties across Sonoma Valley. A business owner was responsible for marketing and finance, aspects of business ownership she had overlooked before. She met with a business coach who taught her about the other side of the kitchen: business management.

Kershner then focused on growing her business from the outside-in by leveraging her relationships in the community, according to Brandy Ceremony-Aviña, general manager and chef for Goodness Gracious Catering.

“I think her success externally as a business owner, it's because of her commitment to the community,” Ceremony-Aviña said. “Her mission here at Goodness Gracious is to highlight the local artisans, the farmers, the business owners, who we believe are the backbone of Sonoma’s economy.”

Together with Ceremony-Aviña, who joined Goodness Gracious Catering in 2018, Kershner opened two more business, Songbird Parlour and Valley of the Moon Kombucha, and sought the best products available in Sonoma Valley’s cornucopia of high-quality products and ingredients.

But Kershner was motivated to also cultivate growth within her business. For Ceremony-Aviña, a mother of three, that’s meant breaking down the barriers for working mothers and allowing her to bring her children to work.

“She's given the gift to me and other employees of business coaching classes, stipends for education and personal development or professional skill sets,” Ceremony-Aviña said. “That might be an allowance for chefs to eat out and be inspired by new dishes, or a scholarship to take classes in marketing or sales. Those are very tangible.”

In April 2022, Kershner was named as one of North Bay Business Journal’s Forty under 40 at the age of 32. Now, she’s focused on bringing in tourism to the village of Glen Ellen as another destination in Sonoma Valley.

“I just feel like what I'm doing is bettering the community, especially being out here in Glen Ellen,” Kershner said. “It's kind of a sleepy little town, but there's definitely plenty of reasons to visit.”

Contact reporter Chase Hunter at chase.hunter@sonomanews.com or on their personal website chasehunterb.weebly.com

Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled “Parlour.” The article has been updated to correct this.