Biola Odunewu and Robin Richardson both fled the tyranny of 9-to-5 workdays to follow their dream of opening the Pillow Café, and gave Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill community a flourishing lounge and restaurant—in the process.

Nigerian-born Odunewu graduated from college in Atlanta, Georgia, and began her career as a writer for CNN. In 1997, after moving to New York, she worked in the dot-com industry before jumping ship to open the Pillow Café with Richardson. Richardson, for her part, is a native New Yorker, and was a dropout-prevention counselor before “the bureaucracy sent her running,” she says. Another 10 years in retail and bartending gave Richardson an excellent platform for building the Pillow Café. “We had no money when we started; we crossed our fingers that everything would work out, and it did.”—KL