Maria Kahn dreamed for years about opening her own place. When she got a chance to stop being a hairstylist and run the Burchfield Penney Art Center’s cafe, she expected restaurateur headaches: staffing, taxes and workers’ comp.

Not so expected: Styling hair pays better.

“That was my biggest surprise,” said Kahn, who has run Tastings Cafe since September. “I’m lucky to pay myself after I pay these girls.”

It all started with tapenade, an olive spread that Kahn brought to parties. After enough people hounded her for the recipe, she decided to try to sell it. With the guidance of the Cornell University Food Venture Center, she worked out a state-inspected process to make tapenade, hazelnut pesto and a Peruvian aji hot sauce.

In 2007, she started selling her creations at the Williamsville Farmers’ Market. That led to a catering business, and catering gigs at Buffalo State College led to her recruitment by the Burchfield Penney. Her husband, Drew Kahn, also works on campus, as chairman of the Buff State theater department, and they’re raising Nathan, almost 8, and Samantha, 15.

Tastings Cafe’s 28 seats are full for lunch on some days, with college staff, museum visitors. About 70 percent of the cafe’s offerings use her sauces, like the lentil salad with her “Tangy Tarragon Basil Vinaigrette.”

So why go to all this trouble, if you made more money cutting hair?

“I love it. It’s not about the money. I make enough. I think that the world deserves my product and should have it. Because it’s fresh.”

Someone says, “Hey, I should get into business myself, my barbecue sauce or whatever is killer.”You say?

“ ‘Call Cornell. It’s really easy.’ It’s really a matter of taking like five steps. Write down your ingredients. Measure out exactly how much you used. Write down what you did to prepare the product. Test it. Then fax them your form. Everything kind of falls into place after that.”

So once you go through the process, you’ve got a tasty product people will pay for, you’re set?

“It’s one thing to get it into the package. It’s another thing to get it out and get it sold. I think that’s where the talent comes in, if you’re passionate about the product. My experience is that when I go to the farmers’ markets myself and sell my product, and I have an incredible staff, I probably sell about 40 percent more.”

So it’s simple food where good ingredients make the difference?

“We even roast the hazelnuts ourselves that we use in our pesto. We squeeze our own lemons and limes. No bottled lemon juice. It doesn’t taste the same. In fact, I had approached a cold packer last summer to see if somebody could produce my product in a mass quantity. They gave it a couple of tries, and they tried using bottled lemon juice, but it was a no-go. It’s not fresh.”