Some of the best conversations happen in a kitchen. Not in a boardroom or behind a podium, but where something real is being made, hands are busy, and creating together strips away the formality that makes honest conversation harder than it needs to be.
That’s why I chose a kitchen for this episode of Turning Point. I welcomed Tara Beasley Stanberry, entrepreneur, baker, community advocate, co-owner of Noonie’s Place, and founder of Just Pies by Tara, for a hands-on apple pie demonstration that turned into one of the most grounded conversations we’ve had on the show. It was never really about the pie.
Listen to the full episode here and keep reading for the ideas worth carrying long after the episode ends.
Entrepreneurship Starts Before the Business Plan
Most conversations about small business ownership jump straight to the technical stuff: funding, licensing, marketing, business plans. All of it matters, but none of it comes before the thing that actually makes someone start.
Passion. Purpose. And the kind of perseverance that keeps you going on the days when nobody is buying, nobody is listening, and the gap between where you are and where you want to be feels impossible to close.
Tara built Just Pies by Tara from exactly that place: a genuine love for baking, a desire to share something meaningful with her community, and the willingness to take the first step before she had any guarantee it would work. The technical elements come after. The belief that what you’re making matters has to come first.
I know this firsthand. As a business owner myself, I’ve lived the uncertainty of building something from scratch, and as a council member I’ve spent four years working to make that journey easier for Fairfield entrepreneurs, through reduced red tape, streamlined permitting, and better access to resources. I wrote more about that in Small Business Support in Fairfield CA. Tara’s story is exactly the kind that investment is meant to support.
What Small Businesses Do for a Community
Small businesses create jobs, but they also create identity, gathering places, and the community texture that makes a neighborhood feel like somewhere people want to be. When Tara walks into a community with a pie, she’s creating a moment of connection. She’s saying this place matters enough to bring my best work to it.
That’s why small businesses thriving in Fairfield matters beyond revenue and job numbers. A neighborhood with vibrant local businesses, owned by people who live there and care about it, feels alive.
Tara makes her community better just by being in it, and the episode makes clear her success happened because of her community focus, not in spite of it.
It’s the same philosophy behind Solano Impact Care, the community support organization I co-founded to help people across Solano County overcome challenges through personalized care and meaningful connection. I was building that work in our community long before I had a council seat.
Every Dream Deserves a Seat at the Table
The episode’s most resonant line is also its simplest: every dream deserves a seat at the table.
Not just the dreams with funding already attached, or the ideas that already have an audience. Every dream, including the ones that start in a home kitchen with a family recipe and a belief that something made with love deserves to find its way to someone who needs it.
Women entrepreneurs, particularly women of color, face a landscape that has historically made that seat hard to claim. Access to capital is harder. Networks are smaller. And the assumption that certain kinds of businesses are less serious or less scalable has cost our economy enormously in unrealized potential.
Tara pushes back on all of that. Just Pies by Tara exists not because conditions were perfect, but because Tara decided her dream was worth pursuing anyway. Showing up for your own vision before the world confirms it’s a good idea is the most important decision any entrepreneur makes.
I made that kind of decision when I founded Hazel’s Tranquility Place, a transitional home named after my mother, providing safe housing and a real pathway forward for formerly incarcerated women and their children in Solano County. I didn’t wait for someone else to solve the problem I saw. To me, that’s what entrepreneurship rooted in purpose looks like.
The Conversation That Happens Around Food
There’s a reason I chose to film this episode in a kitchen with an apple pie being made from scratch.
Food slows a conversation down. It creates a natural rhythm that makes space for thoughts that might not surface in a more structured setting. Some of the most honest things people say about their lives and dreams come out while they’re making something.
The kitchen is one of the oldest community spaces there is. It’s where families tell their stories, where cultures pass themselves forward, and where the knowledge of how to make something from nothing gets handed from one generation to the next.
Tara understands that instinctively. At its best, Turning Point creates the conditions for the conversation that needs to happen, not just the one that’s easy to have.
Listen to More Than Apple Pie on Turning Point here and follow along for more episodes bringing together entrepreneurship, community, and real conversations with people doing meaningful work.
What This Means for Fairfield
Tara and I are different kinds of builders. She builds pies. I build policy. But we’re working toward the same thing:
A Fairfield where people with something meaningful to offer have a genuine shot at building it. Where community investment shows up in how the city spends its money, writes its ordinances, and treats the people trying to create something from nothing.
I make that case from the council table through my advocacy for small business owners, and I live it through Solano Impact Care, Hazel’s Tranquility Place, and Turning Point.
That work continues, in conversations like this one, where a baker, a council member, and an apple pie find their way into a kitchen and remind us that the most meaningful things are still made from scratch.
Visit justpiesbytara.com to support Tara’s work and kpatrice.com for more Turning Point episodes.
For campaign and election information, visit ElectKPatriceWilliams.com.
Learn more at kpatriceforfairfield.com
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Who is Tara Beasley Stanberry?
Tara Beasley Stanberry is the co-owner of Noonie’s Place and the founder of Just Pies by Tara, a community-rooted baking business built on passion, purpose, and a genuine love for bringing people together through food. Find her at justpiesbytara.com.
3. Where can I listen to this episode?
Listen to the full episode here and find more episodes.
4. What community organizations has K. Patrice Williams founded?
I co-founded Solano Impact Care at solanoimpactcare.org and founded Hazel’s Tranquility Place at hazelstranquility.org, a transitional home for formerly incarcerated women and children in Solano County.