by Alisa Gumbs
June 8, 2026
OU LA restaurant owner Nagela Duperval is unsettled by the challenges of financing a small business
Nagela Duperval has been involved in entrepreneurship for a long time, but opening a restaurant was never part of her master plan.
“I was a single parent and just took care of everyone. So I got into real estate. I became a real estate investor,” she said. “The restaurant actually came about because I was looking for another way to make money because there was never enough money.”
Although Duperval had no experience in the industry, she decided to open a restaurant next after receiving a tip that was too good to pass up.
“A friend alerted me to an available space in Carteret, New Jersey, that had a liquor license. And I said, ‘Yeah, liquor license! I’m about to make money,” Duperval said. “But I didn’t think about anything else. I just jumped in.”
What she thought would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity — especially after the landlord went rent-free for a year — turned into a nightmare when she couldn’t get an SBA loan. The OU LA Restaurant & Bar ultimately took three years to open. And during that time, Duperval borrowed from whomever she could to get the business off the ground.
“I went into a company and thought, ‘Oh, we’re going to make money,’ right? So I promised people these big returns, these crazy returns, because I was just so desperate,” she admits. “I’ve lost relationships because I can’t pay people back. I’ve lost friends because I can’t pay people back.”
Four years into the project and a year after opening, OU LA is finally in a good place – and Duperval is working hard to pay off her debt. She spoke candidly at the recent How I Got Here (HIGH) small business summit and shared the lessons she learned so other entrepreneurs don’t make the same mistakes.
Don’t count your loans before they’re maxed out
“I thought the opportunity was so easy; they give money to small businesses. But it’s actually harder for us to get financing. They don’t tell you you need collateral. I had sold all of my investment properties and thought, ‘Oh, I’ll have the money on hand.’ But where is the security then? How do you secure this loan?
“They don’t tell you that investors who give you money have to look at their bank account. I didn’t think about any of that stuff because I went into it so blindly.
“I also made the mistake of starting construction before I even got approved for the loan. So now I’ve started construction and I can’t get this SBA loan. So I’m like, ‘Oh my God, what should I do?’ I have to keep borrowing from different people to figure it out because at that point I was so busy finishing the project that I didn’t care who I borrowed from. I just took, took, took… wherever I could get it.”
Remember, even after opening a restaurant, Capital Still needed
“When I opened, another big mistake was that I had no working capital. You can’t open a business without working capital. How was I going to pay my employees the week I wasn’t making enough money for payroll? OU LA was making about $15,000 to $18,000 a week. Payroll alone was about $25,000.”
“So I have a full-time job to pay the people in my company. I have a full-time job to pay the suppliers. The suppliers called me. They said, ‘We’re not shipping to you anymore because you’re getting cash on delivery.’ [cash on delivery].
It got to the point where I no longer had anyone to borrow from. I couldn’t access my 401(k) account. I could no longer take out loans because my credit was exhausted. I stopped paying my personal bills because in turn I was using my paycheck to pay people for the business. I was ready to say, “You know what?” I will close my doors. I can’t do this. I have failed.’ It was the most difficult time.”
Be careful who you trust
“Any business is difficult if you don’t have the right support system. I went into the restaurant business knowing absolutely nothing about it. I relied on experts to help me. And then I realize that these people aren’t experts themselves. They don’t really know.”
“I finally met someone who started helping and taught me, ‘This is what you need to do. This is how you figure out your food costs. This is how you pay the vendors.’
“But before that, there were people I wanted to work with to take advantage. Three different investors I wanted to work with all turned out to be scammers. They wanted to take my business away from me. It was terrible.”
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