Staver_Entrepreneur_Portrait

Ryan DiFranco quit his job in the restaurant business and decided to create his own in the midst of the worst recession in recent memory. Banks would not fund his initial concept, so he scaled down, changed the concept and used business credit cards and family loans to finance his venture. Ryan’s journey through creating and opening DiFranco’s is the quintessential tale of entrepreneurship and offers insight into this often overlooked process revealing emotion and risk while weaving threads of the economy, the quest for a better quality of life and community betterment into the seemingly simple process of opening a small restaurant. Denver, Colorado based documentary photographer Matthew Staver created this, and other photographs in his unpublished picture story in 2012. ©2012 Matthew Staver