{"id":438853,"date":"2026-08-21T00:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T00:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/438853\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T00:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T00:18:11","slug":"pasta-supply-co-s-pasta-for-life-crowdfunder-proves-to-be-an-irresistible-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/438853\/","title":{"rendered":"Pasta Supply Co.\u2019s \u2018Pasta for Life\u2019 Crowdfunder Proves to Be an Irresistible Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

When chef Anthony Strong wanted to open a third location of his popular restaurant and market, Pasta Supply Co.<\/a>, he decided to do things differently. First, there\u2019s the space he picked: a former Peet\u2019s Coffee location in his neighborhood of Cole Valley. It\u2019s not your typical restaurant, but it was suitable enough for cooking and selling pasta at the scale Pasta Supply Co. executes at its other locations \u2014 pasta dishes cooked to order for in-house diners, or fresh pasta and sauces to cook at home.<\/p>\n

He also decided to go a different route with getting money for the buildout. Rather than bank loans, private equity, or traditional crowdfunding sites, which he\u2019s used in the past (\u201cwhere for $50 you might get a t-shirt in a year if we get open,\u201d he says), he knew he wanted to get the neighborhood involved. To raise $400,000 for the buildout, on Wednesday, August 12, Strong and his team set up a way for people to back them via the restaurant\u2019s website, where they get something out of the deal, too: Purchase take-home pasta for a year for $550, or buy pasta for life for $4,000<\/a>. \u201cWhy wouldn\u2019t we go straight to the people who are already buying our pasta?\u201d Strong says. \u201cThe people that we see at the farmers market every Sunday, the dude who stops for sandwiches and lunch three times a week in the Mission \u2014 let\u2019s go straight to our community that we serve, [people] that trust us, that rely on us, that we already rely on, and just pay them back in pasta with our product. It was kind of \u2018duh\u2019 for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now a week into the sales, Pasta Supply Co. is \u201cwell past halfway to our target,\u201d he says. The fine details for the pasta-for-a-year (or life) offering work out to customers being allowed to pick up a box of pasta weekly for their purchased time period, including fresh and filled pasta (just not the ready-to-bake lasagnas). Customers can start their purchases immediately and pick up their pasta at the Mission or Richmond location, or wait for the Cole Valley shop to open up, their choice. And companies can also get in on pasta purchases for employees: For every 10 subscriptions they buy, Pasta Supply Co. will donate one to a San Francisco school, which they can in turn use for fundraising or however they want. And because the purchases are made through the store\u2019s own platform, they don\u2019t have to pay a cut to a crowdfunding site. \u201cFor us, it just means we get to pay people back in pasta,\u201d Strong says, \u201cand we get to start off in a much better position as a business, with less risk, in a way that we can keep taking really good care of our team and in a way that we can grow organically.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Pasta<\/a><\/p>\n

Patricia Chang<\/p>\n

\"Pasta<\/a><\/p>\n

Patricia Chang<\/p>\n

In setting up the crowdfunding options, Strong used tools to forecast the numbers and put that up against his costs to balance price and value, while still earning enough to reach the goal. While he doesn\u2019t believe their brand of crowdfunding will work for all restaurants, he does think it could be a potential model for a place like, say, a bakery. \u201cI really think it\u2019s worth figuring out what value you can provide,\u201d Strong says. \u201cOurs just happens to be really easy: It\u2019s pasta.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are also questions about the limitations of the pasta for the year, or for life, of course. Customers can skip a week, or get \u201cskipsies,\u201d as Strong calls it. No, you can\u2019t collect a month\u2019s worth of pasta in one visit. (Someone has already asked.) And if you\u2019re industrious enough and deep-pocketed enough, you could follow in the footsteps of one parent who purchased a pasta-for-life option and put it in their kid\u2019s name; Strong won\u2019t stop you just because he didn\u2019t put in an age restriction. (\u201cWe didn\u2019t spell it out,\u201d he says of the situation, laughing. \u201cYeah, girl, set them up. I respect that. It\u2019s his money, right?\u201d)<\/p>\n

There have been some good surprises for the team in the ensuing week since customers activated their purchases. The program they vibe coded to keep track of pasta pickups includes a photo of the customer who\u2019ll be dropping by for pasta, and Strong says it\u2019s been \u201cso sweet\u201d looking at all of his smiling customers holding a box of pasta for their first pickup. \u201cSeeing it pop as hard as it did, immediately, was pretty cool,\u201d Strong says. \u201cIt kind of reinvigorated my faith that people are into doing cool shit for the businesses that they love and the businesses that are literally here to just make them good stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having customers support the shop and come in weekly for their box of pasta creates the kind of community and neighborhood feel that Strong wants with his shops. The byproduct being that these customers in turn become regulars, and the team gets a fun, weekly interaction with their supporters. It\u2019s this earnestness and straightforwardness with which Strong is hoping his shops become neighborhood staples. When he opened his first shop in the pandemic, Strong remembers moments where he wished there was some sort of neighborhood activation with the stores to get people outdoors again. He loves that a couple who lives three blocks away from his store gets to walk over once a week for pasta. He wants \u201cany opportunity that a small independent business can take to reinforce the value of a neighborhood community,\u201d Strong says. \u201cWe can\u2019t exactly give DoorDash and Uber Eats a run for their money, right? But damn it, little shops like ours that are doing things like this are what create neighborhood energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pasta Supply Co.<\/a> (919 Cole Street, San Francisco) debuts its Cole Valley Shop in Fall 2026.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The upcoming location of Pasta Supply Co. in Cole Valley Anthony Strong<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When chef Anthony Strong wanted to open a third location of his popular restaurant and market, Pasta Supply…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,16677,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-438853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-san-francisco-restaurant-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}