Opening a Restaurant: Build a Community Around it First: Elements In Washington DC

In the same way that many books built an audience before a word was ever written thanks to their author's penning a blog or contributing to various online publications, the 'model' is applied to other areas.

In Online, a Community Gathers to Concoct A Neighborhood Eatery, Jane Black (Washington Post) tells us how Linda Welch decided to use the power of Crowdsourcing to lay the groundwork for a vegetarian/raw food restaurant she plans to open in Washington DC.

With the help of Neil Takemoto who was launching CoolTown Beta Community at the same time that Linda was toying with the idea, they created a community site, Elements (the name of the restaurant to be)...