Her Story
About Cherie
Cherie Barfield serves as Owner and Chef of her restaurant in Dublin, California. After 28 years working as an executive assistant supporting senior leaders at Fortune 500 companies including Meta for five and a half years, Microsoft for seven years, and Cisco, she was laid off from Meta in 2023. She then transitioned her long-standing passion for cooking, which began in childhood alongside her grandmother and mother, into a full-time venture. With a BA and BS in Business Management earned in 2018 and a Project Management Certification, Barfield opened her restaurant within four or five months of starting to build her brand. As the first black-owned, woman-owned restaurant in Dublin history, she remains hands-on, cooking and baking daily while managing the business. Her son serves as general manager and partner. Barfield is a member of the Entreprenista League, a group of women founders, and gives back to local high school programs supporting sports and academics. She attributes her success to hard work, perseverance, self-belief, and her faith.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Cherie
01What do you attribute your success to?
A lot of hard work and not giving up. Believing in yourself. I attribute a lot of it to faith. I'm faith-based so I believe in God. I believe that this is purpose-driven and something that I was always meant to do. It's bigger than me. I try to breathe the energy into my food, try to keep my mind peaceful and my life drama-free and I try to bring that into the food. I really get genuine joy from people enjoying my food. That's how I express my love through food.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Just write things down. Start writing them down. Once I started to actually embrace it and started taking notes it really started to help me with my organizational skills. In the restaurant space an owner told me after a year they part with their employees and start fresh because it's really hard to find good people and there's no loyalty anymore.
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