With Love and Quiches (12 page)

Bridget was a very interesting character. Every year she took a trip with her church group—big-time trips. Years later, when Irwin and I were finally able to travel, there was hardly a place we visited that she
hadn’t been to before us! China, Israel, South America, and lots of cruises where she brought back photos of herself at the captain’s table dressed in an evening gown, complete with elbow-length gloves.

My work-dominated life and the crazy events that came with it was the new reality, and I accepted it. On one occasion, Irwin and I were in the city to enjoy a rare evening out on the town when I made the mistake of calling the plant from the restaurant to see how everything was going. I was told that the roof had fallen in. Thinking this was a manner of speaking, I immediately became upset, thinking of every imaginable catastrophe that they might be referring to. But as it turned out, the roof of our eighteen-by-twenty-four-foot freezer had actually
collapsed
! Something wonderful also happened, however: my employees had taken charge, calling in the necessary parties, and by the time Irwin and I got back, the repairs were already well under way. Everything was under control without me! Without realizing it at the time, this was an important milestone, part of the process of learning to let go … to trust.

Trying to separate your personal and business lives simply doesn’t work—not at this level, not until you have developed an effective organization with clearly defined areas of responsibility. We were nowhere near that point yet. I was exhausted all the time, still finding compelling reasons to spend time on my hands and knees in the plant scrubbing something that I felt needed scrubbing, responsible for everybody, worrying about everything, but knowing deep inside that I was going to see it through and move on to the next level. Too much momentum had already been created; there could be no turning back.

We continued in our efforts to expand up and down the East Coast, with me serving as sole out-of-town salesperson, and I can report that it is
really
cold in Buffalo in the dead of winter. I was dancing as fast as I could, and little by little, we picked up even more small distributors
from New England down through the Carolinas, with occasional tentative forays further into the Southeast.

We kept growing in the New York metro area, too. We obtained our first co-packing contract, producing the original Lindy’s Cheesecake for the group who held the license to market it as well as the recipe. We continued to produce for them for many years until they wanted the cheesecakes to be finished with various
fresh
fruits on top, which we could not do. We have always been a frozen food manufacturer, and fresh fruit simply does not freeze well. We were unhappy to have to walk away from this piece of business, but we learned, just as with the mincemeat pies for the athletic club, things change, and sometimes if the fit is not correct, you need to stop and walk away.

We started doing business with one of our longest-running accounts. Sandy Beall, the founder of Ruby Tuesday, had just opened his first gourmet shop and café on Hilton Head Island, and he was visiting New York with his wife to hunt for menu ideas. He spotted our quiches in Zabar’s on the Upper West Side; they looked good, and so he gave us a call. We have been servicing Ruby Tuesday with various products for more than thirty years, from the time when there was only one, then seven, then a hundred, and now more than eight hundred Ruby Tuesday units! (Sandy recently retired as chairman and CEO of Ruby Tuesday, but we still keep in touch.)

Then came the biggest game changer of all. To our great surprise, we received a phone call from a very large restaurant chain with better than four hundred locations requesting a sample of a seafood quiche for a new brunch menu they were developing. I assume they found us because we were still just about the only company producing quiche at the time, certainly the only one with “quiche” in its name. We sent them the quiche sample, but we also threw in a ringer: our spectacular Pecan Brownie Pie, the same pie we had developed for Jacqueline Kennedy’s dinner party. They called within minutes of receiving the samples, raving about the brownie pie and insisting that they simply
had
to have it for a six-week special. This may have been the very first
limited-time offer, a marketing ploy that has become a standard in the restaurant industry. They said they planned on serving the pie warm, accompanied by ice cream and chocolate sauce. Then they asked how quickly we could produce six thousand cases.
Six thousand cases!
Our largest order to date had been maybe three or four hundred cases. And they wanted six pies per case, not our usual four—which meant an extra
twelve-thousand
pies!

After less than a second’s hesitation—once we got up off the floor, having fallen off our chairs in disbelief—I said, “When do you need them?” “In six weeks,” they replied. “No problem.”

How we produced such a large order so quickly, with hardly a problem, while conducting all of our regular business in our small plant—which still had only our twenty-four- and eighteen-pan ovens, which translates to a mere eighty-pie capacity (two per bun pan)—was truly a testament to Jimmy the Baker’s time management skills and supreme talents as a baker! Of course we baked all through the weekends for those few weeks. We were still, at that time, only a five-day operation, so that extra capacity on Saturday and Sunday was crucial. If I remember correctly, we also had our two original Blodgett convection ovens from the Bonne Femme days; we had hooked them up when we moved to Oceanside, just in case. Well, “just in case” was upon us. But in the end, it paid off: the Pecan Brownie Pie dessert special was such a spectacular success that the restaurant chain immediately put it on their regular dessert menu, where it remained for twenty-five-plus years!

As the seventies drew to a close, Love and Quiches flew past the million-dollar mark, and our volume between 1978 and 1980—a pivotal period—doubled and then some. We started to see that yet another move was inevitable, this one even bolder than the others (and fortunately our last). I also knew, with certainty, that there would be no more “me,” that from now on it would be “us” and “we” for everything. I knew I did not want to go it alone anymore—nor could I. And so I asked Irwin to join the business officially.

*
   This number, like all others in the book referring to our volume growth, has not been adjusted for inflation, so our trajectory was actually a bit more dramatic than the numbers suggest.

Why not go out on a limb—isn’t that where the fruit is?
—Frank Scully

B
y 1980 we had developed from our accidental and tentative beginning into a business with a fairly extensive line of quiches and desserts, and we had secured our reputation as a high-end supplier. We had won some important national customers, and now we needed a place from which we could continue to grow. If we didn’t, we could be in danger of losing them. We laughed, recalling how we had considered renting out some of our five thousand square feet upon moving to our Oceanside facility in 1976; four years later, the walls were once again pressed to their limits. We had reached well over $2 million in volume, employed thirty-five people, were servicing four hundred customers, and were running six trucks daily that covered the tri-state area. I’d also finished paying back the
$200,000 bank loan that my father had collateralized for me. A part of me was still constantly asking, “Is this really happening?” even though I knew the answer very well.

But even given this level of success, up to this point the development of Love and Quiches had been, as our first seven years amply demonstrated, somewhat haphazard, with chance playing a much larger role than it would have had I planned it out a little more thoughtfully. That could have cut both ways—although fortunately, it didn’t—but if the whole thing had gone down, we would have disappeared without too much disruption since our reach was still rather small. Of course, I was never going to let that happen, but from here on out the stakes would become much larger, and the consequences of any missteps more serious. Frankly, if I was not so confident of our current standing within the foodservice industry, I might have been embarrassed to admit to so many missteps and foibles up to this point. However, I have always had the ability to laugh at myself, and I’ve also been helped along by the knowledge that my audience is laughing
with
rather than
at
me. Building a business of our size is a very serious undertaking, and I needed to hold on to my sense of humor through it all. Otherwise, the tears could have easily taken over. And there were plenty of those.

As the decade of the eighties began, I realized that we had once again reached a point in our growth where no manner of reorganizing with the tools at hand would work. The floorboards were literally crying uncle under the weight of our business, and so were we. That meant another move, this time a big one, with professional help in the planning, and we needed a lot of money to do it right. We could no longer operate as a homespun, do-it-yourself outfit.

Irwin had always been there to help and advise me from day one, and I had constantly called upon his expertise and foresight, but I recognized that I needed his undivided attention from here on in if the company was going to continue to grow successfully. I’d asked him to officially join me in Love and Quiches, and now I pressed him for his
answer. But although he had already become an integral part of the effort, the proposal remained on the table for the time being.

We all agreed that the time had come to launch our search for yet another new home. We were mindful of the logistics of our existing staff and didn’t want to lose them, so we followed the same course we had when we made our move to Oceanside: concentric circles. We started our search across the street at a twenty-thousand-square-foot warehouse that one of our suppliers for pie tins, paper goods, cartons, etc. was moving out of. Even though it was four times the size of our current facility, we deemed it too small.

Next we looked at a defunct tennis center around a very long corner, which had the advantage of office space situated on a balcony overlooking what would be the production floor, but this building presented other problems. Although it was merely half a mile away from our present location, it seemed more like a world away. The building itself was extremely isolated, unappealing, and dreary, surrounded as it was by many huge oil tanks and a landfill. It was quite obvious why the tennis center had failed, and I wanted our staff to look forward to pulling up to the building in the morning, not dread it. This was definitely not the right move, even at forty thousand square feet.

Our current location was abuzz with plenty of activity, what with light manufacturing places, outlet stores, banks, coffee shops, and other services nearby. (There was also a butcher who had been selling us butter at a price that we should have known was a bit too good. We discovered that it was government surplus when one delivery arrived and he had forgotten to peel the paper off of the packaging—it was clearly marked as “Surplus” and “Not for Public Sale.” So much for that.)

Those were the only two buildings of any size in the area, which made expanding our search a necessity. We hired a commercial real estate broker—a family friend—and in spite of his protests because of its reputation as a dangerous area, we found our way to Freeport, only ten minutes farther away.

Thirty years ago, the village of Freeport was an area of contrasts; poverty and racial unrest coexisted alongside a thriving waterfront replete with sprawling homes and a lively “restaurant row.” Still a vibrant mecca today, Freeport draws both locals and tourists alike to the scenic restaurants, bars, and fisheries along its canals. An industrial park was built there on the grounds of what used to be a stock car racing arena, which was a popular place to take a date when we were teenagers. Irwin and I would go there with a group of friends a few times during the summer, and then we would all go down to the waterfront area for fried clams and shrimp.

We decided we would concentrate our search here. At the same time, Irwin officially signed on, as I had always hoped he would, and I was happy. The prospect of a partnership both in marriage and in business had given him pause, but we have had a good life, and it was the right decision.

Despite so many people advising us against the area, I had a good feeling about Freeport from the very start. It felt open and calm. The area has always served us well, with a plentiful labor pool of fine and hardworking people, many of whom have been with us for fifteen or twenty years or more. Freeport generates its own power, offered at a much lower rate than the Long Island average. Added to these benefits, the town fathers have always bent over backward to help us whenever possible because we provide a great many jobs in the community. The building we were considering was directly on a canal. I love water, having been brought up in a community right on the ocean, where we walked the beach all year long. Freeport was perfect.

We drove around the industrial park and quickly identified what, in my opinion, would be the perfect building. It was thirty thousand square feet. The ceilings were considered low at fourteen feet, but in my innocence I thought of this measurement as simply more energy efficient. Now I wish we had some additional headroom for
platforms, extra storage, and the like. However, there was quite a lot of room for expansion on the outside. As the years passed, we built many additions, one by one, as the business grew. We expanded our capacity in other ways as well. For example, we purchased some high-speed equipment that allowed for much greater output per hour—by that I mean production—within the same space. Very often, efficiency trumps square footage.

Negotiating with our potential new landlord was trying; it felt more like we were vying for one hundred thousand square feet of the most prime floor space in the Empire State Building! Lots of lawyers, lots of rewriting the contract, lots of arguments, and many weeks going by, but we finally ended up with a quite favorable lease with a right of first refusal
and
an option to buy, which meant that they could never sell the building out from under us. (We still do not own the building because of some estate issues on the landlord’s side, but we continue to enjoy favorable terms, and we have an easy out should we decide to move on.)