John Miller says that although most of the Pizza Oasis founders were his friends at Colby, he didn't even meet Katie Colbert Allen until three weeks before graduation. Allen says she knew only one of the group of five when they were at Colby. A native of Pinellas Park, Fla., she wanted to see the West Coast the summer after graduation and ended up in Berkeley, Calif. From there, several Colby people "with a mutual past" got in a car and drove up to Portland, where they shared a cheap apartment. Miller, who majored in economics at Colby, was delivering pizzas part time when, he says, it suddenly occurred to him, "I can do this myself." Allen says she believes they took a chance starting the restaurant because of their similar backgrounds and similar outlooks. "Colby people took life a bit more seriously," said Allen, an English major. "Education to them is a valuable thing and provides a certain strong foundation, a base to go on. It gives you a real sense of security." When Allen reflects on the changes in her partnership--the exodus of three of the original five owners, the sale of the original restaurant and the new place with a new name, Oasis Cafe--she realizes that she had no idea what an education she was in for when the business started. She was "twenty-two and naive," she says, and through inexperience made mistakes in managing employees and in planning. Eight years later, she is astonished to find herself managing a thriving business. "College kids who didn't want to wear a suit now employ twenty-five people and have a health plan," she said. "It just amazes me that we provide health and paid vacations and a viable way for people to make a little bit of money. It's nice to see the results of a kind of whim." "Katie and I have figured out how to do the dance. We get along very well," said Miller. In June of 1988 he and Allen bought a second restaurant, Miller taking over the original store and Allen taking the new. When Miller became a vegan and would consume no animal food or dairy products, working with cheese and pepperoni became difficult. He sold his store, opening his own health-food restaurant for a year and also producing a whole-wheat cheeseless pizza that didn't take off owing to a limited market. Fitting in back at the Oasis Cafe was hard, he says. He became an investing partner, with Allen the managing partner. Throughout the changes in the Oasis Cafe venture, the Colby tributaries continued to flow. Amy Vander Vliet '86 joined the staff. Through friends of friends, Allen met and married Michael Allen '86, whom she says she barely knew at school (he was her rugby coach). A biochemistry major at Colby and fledgling writer, Michael does some of the bookkeeping for Oasis Cafe. "It's strange how life works out," said Katie. "If I'd followed my plan--travel, go to grad school and become a professor--I wouldn't have the life I have. I had no clue that starting a business would introduce me to the man I married. It's pretty neat." Katie likes working for herself. Independence enhances the value she places on her relationships with neighbors and her talks with customers, and even if things go poorly, she says, she can't blame anybody else. "There's quite a lot of pride in doing the work. You put a hundred and ten percent of yourself into it," she said. "It really does give you a sense of being able to determine your own future." But she sees the flexibility of her job as a double-edged sword. She can take time off when she needs it, she says, but if people quit or get sick, she has to take over. The business inevitably offers discouragements, the frustrations of being broke, the down time in February, the need to lean on next month's money to pay bills. She and Miller also talk about hiring a manager so she can start a family, but with her husband struggling to make a career as a writer and their income irregular, it's tough to plan a budget, she says, and she wonders if she can afford the move. "In my grumpy moments, I think--sell! But," Katie said, "I don't want to give up the independence." Of course, nothing is forever. The flexibility and independence common to all of these Colby partnerships have even emboldened Miller to leave Oasis Cafe for veterinary school in Colorado in the fall. Even though he'd always wanted to be a veterinarian, Miller says, he took no science courses at Colby and eight years ago, before his "family" business venture with Katie and his other enterprises, he wouldn't have had the courage to try vet school. "I've already started two other businesses," Miller said, "and both failed, but I've learned a lot. I don't regret any of this. It's a whole other college education. Neither of us left Colby thinking we were going to be restaurant owners. There were other dreams--and hopefully it's easier to fulfill them now."