For almost seven years, Lilia Vizcaino handled janitor duty at a coffee shop near UC Berkeley, cleaning up at closing time. But Vizcaino, who came to the U.S. from Mexico and now lives in Albany, wanted something better for her family.

“I wanted stability, and I needed to do something else for the future,” she said.

Today Vizcaino owns her own restaurant, El Tiny Cafe in Berkeley. It’s a cute neighborhood joint that offers Americanos and iced horchata lattes, made with coffee beans sourced from women-owned farms in Mexico. The kitchen serves sandwiches, overnight oats and avocado toast with eggs and salsa macha — and boasts five stars on Yelp.

Vizcaino made it here with help from the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, a business incubator with headquarters in San Francisco and satellite centers around the bay. For the last four decades, Renaissance has helped people — 2,500 last year — start small businesses. The group provides online training classes in English and Spanish, networking events, help with capital acquisition and one-on-one consulting with business experts.

“Entrepreneurship is a proven pathway into self-sufficiency and breaking the cycle of poverty,” said CEO Sharon Miller. “There are so many people who have great ideas, but they don’t know the business aspects of what to do to be successful. People aren’t born knowing how to do accounting or map distribution channels.”

Bay Area locals might be surprised at the familiar names that had a boost from Renaissance. There’s the buzzy Poppy’s Bagels in Oakland; the famous quesabirria spot, El Garage, in Richmond; and Nana Joes Granola in grocery stores throughout California.

“I could never have made it without Renaissance,” Vizcaino said. “During the pandemic, I had an adviser from there for almost a year telling me things like ‘Now you need to get a permit, do this and that,’ and keeping me on track.”