Bernie Rousseau, a Potomac resident and co-owner of Scratch Kitchen in Olney, was one of 20 food business owners to be awarded a $5,000 grant this past July by OpenTable and Regarding Her, a nonprofit organization of women who run food- or beverage-related businesses. (Disclosure: I was one of the judges for these awards.) In addition to receiving the grants, awardees also became Regarding Her Scholars, accessing a 10-week Zoom course aimed at helping them grow their businesses. It covered subjects such as creating and maintaining profit and loss statements, managing food costs and devising marketing strategies.
Rousseau, 42, is also an IT consultant who co-owns Scratch Kitchen with her ex-husband, Vital Correia, 46. The restaurant was meant to be a project for their oldest child, Angelina, to co-own and run. But on the February morning in 2022 that Rousseau and Correia were to sign the lease on the space, they learned that Angelina, who was in Boston at the time, had died, having accidentally overdosed on a fentanyl-laced pill. Devastated, the business partners/exes decided to go ahead with the Latin-fusion restaurant as a tribute to their daughter, who was 22. They opened in September 2022.
Scratch Kitchen seats 22 inside and 40 outside and is open for breakfast and lunch seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Many menu items were created by Dixi Ramos and Maryuri Mejia, the Latina women who run the kitchen. Don’t miss the Salvadoran pupusas with shredded pork and cheese or with refried beans and cheese, and the arroz chaufa (Peruvian fried rice). Rousseau, who is half Puerto Rican, half Italian, refers to the business as Latina-owned.
Rousseau spent her grant money on a few different things. “I hired an architect to remap the seating arrangement, growing it from six seats to 22,” she says. She also redesigned the menu’s graphics, ordered a new tent for off-site outdoor catering events and is building booths to make the space more aesthetically pleasing.
“Even though the Regarding Her dollars don’t seem big, they make all the difference,” Rousseau says. “Equally as important as the money is the camaraderie and help of successful women who are giving so much to others.”
Scratch Kitchen, 18062 Georgia Ave., Olney, 240-998-5365, scratcholney.com
This appears in the January/February 2025 issue of Bethesda Magazine.
