The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Business booming at many local stores
This is the first in a twopart series looking at several area small businesses and how their success may be an indicator of the economic health of the region. Dec. 27: Franchise operations Dec. 28: Specialty foods
Pink Bandana Bakery in Mentor and SweetBerry Fresh Market in Wickliffe are separate businesses with similar visions.
At both of these area businesses, the goal is to entice customers with delicious products, personalized service and a unique buying experience.
Open since late November in a space formerly occupied by a take-out barbecue joint, Pink Bandana Bakery is the brainchild of Mentor resident Kathleen Robinson and her husband, Wendell Robinson.
The cookies, cakes, pastries and other goodies have been flying out of the display cases ever since.
“Oh, boy, do I have orders,” Kathleen Robinson said, smiling, as she put the finishing touches on a birthday cake for a local customer while also making Christmas cookies due for shipping to Florida.
A visitor’s eyes were immediately drawn to a wall adjacent to the table where Robinson was rolling sheets of cookie dough. On the wall is a painting of a woman with a determined look on her face, her left arm flexed to show a PBB tattoo and a pink bandana as focal point of the 1940s-style hairdo.
This is the bakery’s logo and Robinson’s alter ego.
“I can’t tell you how elated and exhausted I am to be here every day,” Robinson said, sporting her pink bandana and not missing a beat as she cut cookie forms out of the dough. “It’s terrifying because you open and don’t know if people will come But we’re here and they’re coming.”
Business was brisk, too,
on a recent weekday afternoon at SweetBerry Fresh Market. Customers lingered over displays of vegetables, fruits, meat, baked goods, the hot-food service counter, dairy products as well as canned and dry goods.
Owned by friends and business partners Joe Bartolone and Steve Saltzman, SweetBerry opened in March 2014. It is poised to become a fixture in the homey, compact building on Euclid Avenue that formerly housed a party center and two food stores that did not stand the test of time.
“Steve knows groceries and meat. I know produce. We thought it wold be a great marriage.”
Sweet smell
Some of Kathleen Robinson’s earliest and fondest memories were of hours spent in the kitchen of her family’s Eastlake home with her mother and aunts. They made nut rolls, cookies, cakes and other sweet
delights.
Robinson also was a big fan of the doughnuts and coffee at Biagio’s, the perennial popular bakery on Vine Street in Eastlake.
“That place is iconic,” Robinson said. “I’ll have a glazed doughnut and coffee, two creams and two sugars. The best coffee I’ve ever had.”
The course of Robinson’s professional life carried her away from the kitchen and into the world of professional fundraising. She plied that trade on behalf of the Salvation Army, the Cleveland YMCA, Case Western Reserve University and other groups.
Especially over the last 10 years, as her infant daughter became a teenager, Robinson considered a change in her life and career,. She wanted to get in back into baking, and maybe do it for a living.
She enrolled in the International Culinary Arts and Sciences Institute in Chester
Township and earned certification as a pastry chef. She watched cooking shows on television and felt she be natural. So she applied for a spot on Food Network’s “Bakers vs. Fakers,” passed the audition and appeared on a May 2017 episode of the contest that pits two amateurs against two pros.
“The episode was called ‘Fruit Tart Upstart,’ “Robinson said. “I didn’t win, but it was an amazing experience.”
After the Food Network experience, Robinson resolved to open her own bakery. With plenty of help from her husband and some silent investors, she pulled together a business plan and opened the doors of Pink Bandana.
“Everybody is put on this planet to do something special. Everybody has a purpose,” Robinson said. “If I didn’t do this, or at least try to do it, I would have regretted it so much. I’m
53. I didn’t want to wait five or 10 years to do this. I’m physically able. People believed in me”
She has big plans for 2018, included the addition of vegan and glutenfree items.
“This is my life’s second chapter,” Robinson said. “The story will be written.”
One generation to the next
Joe Bartolone and Steve Saltzman go way back.
Bartolone is the third generation in his family’s wholesale produce business.
Saltzman is fourth generation in his family’s chain of Dave’s Supermarkets.
The fruits and vegetables in Dave’s stores came from the Bartolones.
They’d talked about merging their skills and opening a place that combined modern marketing with the intimate feel of old-school food stores.
Going on four years ago, they turned talk into action with the acquisition of the Wickliffe building and the opening of SweetBerry Fresh Market.
The staff of 110 employees includes Bartolone’s son, produce manager Joe Jr., and his son-in-law, store manager Ryan Wilson.
“I never thought I’d open a store with my son and son-in-law. If they play their cards right, they have great futures here,” the elder Bartolone said, smiling.
Wilson said the formula hasn’t changed since the store’s opening.
“We’ve created a unique customer experience,” Wilson said. :”We have friendly people working here who meet and exceed expectations. Being small, we’re agile We listen to our customers.”
Bartolone Jr. said the hours are long but worth it, given the loyalty of customers from across Lake and Geauga counties.
“The community support makes this work,” he said. “Our customers talk about us like family.”