The NorCal Veteran Business Outreach Center proudly congratulates Elisa Davila, of Nick’s Sandwiches on being named Veteran Business Owner of the Year. Elisa’s journey from Army veteran to accomplished entrepreneur is a testament to her resilience, passion, and relentless drive. With support and guidance from NorCal VBOC consultant Allen Archuleta, Elisa secured critical funding, navigated a fast-paced remodel, and successfully launched her second business. Her story reflects the powerful impact of veteran-to-veteran mentorship and the strength of community support in transforming challenges into achievements. Elisa’s success embodies the spirit of veteran entrepreneurship, and we are proud to celebrate her remarkable accomplishments.

Video Transcript:

We sacrifice a lot. As veterans, we sacrifice energy, time. Our youth, some of us have sacrificed our life and limbs.

When I left the army, it took me some time to get used to civilian life because we are so used to structure and rank and order. Your mindset as a 21-year-old military person is just completely different. Being a veteran in starting a new business is very hard.

You don’t know anything about opening a business until you open a business. Everything happens and you have to figure it out as you go.

Although hard work is great, you still need money. Like you still need customers, you still need a good location.

You still need all of the above, and that doesn’t come from just hard work. So we always wanted a second or third business, but I didn’t know how to really reach that point.

My name is Alan Archuleta and I’m a consultant with the NorCal Veteran Business Outreach Center, also known as the VBOC. A lot of the services that we provide are educational and training. We also offer no cost 1:on:1 consulting.

It really provides a great resource to help them become successful. Alan is a wizard. He is used to veterans.

To get her a working capital loan that will not only be able to fund the deal in conjunction with some seller financing, but also give her working capital to be able to do a remodel.

We get the Keys. A remodel was necessary, but I don’t wanna close more than three days, and my husband’s like, you’re crazy. Do you understand the amount of work that’s gonna happen?

Well, if you have the right funding, you can get a lot of stuff done in 96 hours if you coordinate all the trades correctly and all the checks are cut.

So today’s a pretty exciting day. It’s Elise’s ribbon cutting ceremony. Being able to work with somebody like Elise, seeing how passionate and driven she is and how much energy she has, it’s been really exciting. A veteran guiding a veteran is definitely necessary.

VBOC helped guide me and get me running smoothly. When it comes to transitioning out of the military, there could be various challenges.

Transitioning military members who may have a service connected disability, and then also taking into account certain things like PTSD.

Sometimes it’s hard for different people to work in certain environments. So it’s unique things like that that we see in supporting our veteran group.

After the remodel, me and my husband just sat right here. We just like, we were like so proud of ourselves. We did it.

We were like, I’m like almost in tears ’cause we did it work side it, and it’s, it’s just so great to have, have all that hard work finally pay off. Although it’s just the beginning, you’re like, wow, we did it. We got a second one. We’re, we’re here.

When they take a bite and they say, it reminds me of their childhood, it just makes me feel like my sandwich mission is complete.