🔒Small business struggles: Are we next?

Since June 2023, I have been on constant edge over whether The Queen’s Cups is going to survive. The past year and a half has been brutal and filled with many sleepless nights, constant anxiety, avoidance, and disbelief. After almost 13 years, how am I in this poition? There is more than one answer to that question, some I am aware of, some bad luck, and a lot of life lessons. With every small business closing, I feel a pang in my heart and question in my mind: Are we next?

I don’t know if we are next. I hope not, because I love my job, my employees, and our customers. But as each week passes, the anxiety lives on. Any time we get ahead, we take three steps back. In just one year, I had an issue with my HVAC, both oven motors went, and my display case had an issue needing to be fixed. The repairs total nearly $10,000, and I don’t have the funds. The cost of butter, eggs, and packaging have continued to climb. Loan payments, credit card payments, payroll, it’s never ending. You name it; we are dealing with it.

I’ve avoided discussing these issues at hand. Most of the people in my life do not even know what we have been dealing with. I am not one for a handout, and a lot of what we are dealing with is my own fault. I have mishandled money in the past when our sales were much more. I took on debt I shouldn’t have, and I have done everything I can think of to keep the business going, even being open seven days a week. I stretched myself so thin I became the old miserable Renee I tried so hard to change.

I have taken my families’ personal money, maxed out our HELOC, maxed out every credit card I have, cashed out both of my 401k, took a loan on my life insurance and my husband’s, taken a personal loan from one of my brothers and a close friend, and borrowed (and still haven’t repaid) money from my parents. My credit score has plummeted.

The guilt I feel is the elephant in the room. What have I done to keep the business afloat that may affect my children? I had a baby boy in March. I do not remember him as a newborn because the burden I put on my family mixed with my post-partum hormones put me in a daze. I signed up to deliver for DoorDash and Instacart, much to my husband’s disapproval. Instead, he worked 60 hours a week to keep us afloat. When I could even take a salary from The Queen’s Cups, it was cut in half and unreliable. I loved him before, but over the past few years, I learned what love is. It’s not always pretty or fun, but it’s always there when it is real.

I was once the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year for Massachusetts. I gave the commencement address at Worcester State University, giving advice to young students who needed a role model. I turned a 750-square-foot dream into this budding business in the Canal District. I wrote these columns with advice for small business owners. Now, on top of the burden and guilt, I can add fraud to that list. I lost my funk and my confidence. When you have felt down for so long, it’s easy for your confidence to plummet with it. I was once that motivating person who inspired others to follow in my footsteps. Now I live with these dark clouds over me.

But the truth is, I still love my job. I still feel the excitement when I go in and turn the ovens on, fill up the sinks, and put on a podcast in the morning. I continue looking for ways to improve business, to add classes, to find the next big thing. I have never, despite the rising costs, cut corners to decrease our quality. My fire is still burning, though so many times over 18 months, it was like a candle burning out. I don’t know what the future holds for me, and it has been difficult to get these feelings on paper.

I know I am not the only one. If you are fighting this fight, I’m with you.

Renee Diaz is the owner of The Queen's Cups bakery in Worcester