Robert Neroni and Lenore Emery

EVOO Cannon Beach Cooking School, 188 S. Hemlock St.

Cannon?Beach

Robert Neroni and Lenore Emery moved to Cannon Beach full time in 2004 and opened EVOO Cooking School in a former cottage. The business includes sit-down, buffet, hands-on dinner classes, partially plated and partially plattered, boxed, pick-up, delivered meals, on-site help, bar tending and more. EVOOs store, which sells ingredients, tools and clothing, is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week. For more information, call 503-436-8555 or visit evoo.biz

What do you do?

Neroni:?We consider ourselves a recreational cooking school. People can come and take classes. We inspire people to cook. Our dinner shows seem to be the most popular. Our website has all the classes weve offered for the last three years. Our guests refer to it as the Food Network with dinner.

Emery: We serve three entrees (at the dinner show) with three wines and a great dessert. We do bread classes, artisan breadmaking, pasta 101, seafood 101. We do artisan breadmaking classes; thats our most popular. We use northwest ingredients, but we cook (dishes from) all over the world.

How did you get started doing this?

Emery: We first built a home here (in 2003). We came 65 weekends (a year from Seattle) and decided to do something about the commute. Ive been an educator most my life. I consider myself a culinary educator. I did my culinary experience at Johnson and Wales (University in Providence, R.I.). I did quality assurance for the food vendor at Microsoft (in Seattle).

Neroni: Weve been in the restaurant business all our lives.

What is the volume of your business?

Emery: We serve 130 to 140 customers per week, which is what a regular restaurant would usually do in one day. Its like we have a dinner party every night.

Neroni: Were not a restaraunt, to be clear. We want to inspire people to cook. You go online; you buy a ticket to the dinner show; you go through a menu. Then we have the hands-on classes, one to four days long. We do maybe 200 to 300 (people in) hands-on classes a year. The dinner shows are $109 per person. Theyre very profitable. We live a comfortable lifestyle. Weve definitely gone for quality of life. Up until last year, 50 percent (of our patrons) were return customers, 25 percent were referrals and 25 percent found us through the Internet. Now, half of our customers find out about the school from the Internet. If you start at the beginning, the draw is Portland and Seattle. If you include Canada, about 15 percent of our patrons are international.

How does the economy affect your business?

Emery: I dont feel like its affected our business, except people are more spontaneous. This summer, retail does seem to be back where it was. People are definitely over the mass-produced products. Weather can be more detrimental than the economy sometimes. We were here in (20)04-05, it was the most gorgeous two years.

Neroni: We (in Cannon Beach) all seem to be working harder to do what weve done (in sales) before. Weve focused on corporate, in-house catering. We can do the same sales (directly after a dinner show) that weve done all day long. As the economy changes, we have to evaluate how to flex.