May 5, 2008
Family meals | A chat with Peter Leavitt, founder of Leavitt & Sons in Falmouth.
Founded: November 2007
Employees: Two full-time, one part-time
Startup costs: $630,000
Projected revenue, year one: $500,000
Projected revenue, year two: $600,000
Contact: 781-3753
37 Depot Rd., Falmouth 04105
www.leavittandsons.com
What are your most popular items?
The sandwiches and the prepared dinners are really what's resonating right now. The original plan was to have more of dinner ingredients ready to go home and cook, and very quickly people said, "I don't have time to cook, I don't want to cook, I just want you to cook for me." So we have both single-entrée prepared dinners with your protein, your starch and your vegetable, and we also have some casseroles and family-style stuff.
Can you tell me about the decision to start your own business?
Yeahˆ I'm not a really good employee. I've been fired at least once. And so when I was a brewer [at Sunday River and Stone Coast Brewery], I was a partner in the business and really had my own realm of responsibility. After doing that for 12 years, I decided I should see what else there was out there. That's when I went back to school for my MBA, and at the same time decided to see what the corporate world was all about.
So I got an internship at Fairchild Semiconductor. I was there for three years and graduated from school and said, "Corporate's okay, but I've got to be in food." I'm a food guy. I've been in food since I was 15 years old. My boss had moved over and he was at Barber Foods. I had been in touch with him and he said, "They're looking for a marketing manager here." I applied there and worked over there. And I said, "You know, being in the food business is great, I don't really think corporate is for me."
And my wife kept saying, "Honey, you've got to be your own boss." So it had to be food related, it had to be my own place, and I wasn't going to open a restaurant because I've worked in restaurants and I didn't want the restaurant hours. And so it was in the summer of 06, we were sitting on the beach and she said, "Honey, why don't you just open a little food store?" I said, "That makes sense."
How did you finance the business?
Friends and family. It was family for the property and we actually are using home equity for capital.
Why did you choose that route?
From a very simple perspective, I don't want to be beholden to anybody. I don't want people to be coming in and questioning what I'm doing because that sort of blows the whole thing of being your own boss. When I started talking to the bank they started saying, "Oh, we can give you a business loan," and what it ended up turning into was a home equity line of credit. So we were in a position that we hadn't really tapped our home for equity for anything else and this was it. We're building the future here.
How do you attract customers?
A number of ways. One is we did some initial adverting with the Forecaster [weekly newspaper]. We had a flier that we put into a lot of the local businesses that I do business with. The location certainly is a part of it because we're right here on the [intersection], and then we also donate to a lot of local good causes. So there are some school auctions that were having fundraisers that we donated to. It's been both in gift cards and we'll put together antipasto platters or party platters or sandwich platters. Word of mouth has been huge.
How did you decide on the name of the business?
I was really looking for a name that was fairly timeless and that would also allow me to go wherever I wanted it to. That it wouldn't be, "This is a deli," or "This is a sandwich shop." And you know, this is really building something for my kids, and not as an inheritance, but to give them something as they grow up to work in.
So my first grader, he comes in here Wednesdays after school and he helps make cookies and he helps clean out the deli cases and he runs the cash register. He's really good at the cash register. The other thing is, if I'm going to be spending so much of my time here, which you have to, it's got to be a place that your family can come to and feel vested in.
Interview by Kerry Elson
Employees: Two full-time, one part-time
Startup costs: $630,000
Projected revenue, year one: $500,000
Projected revenue, year two: $600,000
Contact: 781-3753
37 Depot Rd., Falmouth 04105
www.leavittandsons.com
What are your most popular items?
The sandwiches and the prepared dinners are really what's resonating right now. The original plan was to have more of dinner ingredients ready to go home and cook, and very quickly people said, "I don't have time to cook, I don't want to cook, I just want you to cook for me." So we have both single-entrée prepared dinners with your protein, your starch and your vegetable, and we also have some casseroles and family-style stuff.
Can you tell me about the decision to start your own business?
Yeahˆ I'm not a really good employee. I've been fired at least once. And so when I was a brewer [at Sunday River and Stone Coast Brewery], I was a partner in the business and really had my own realm of responsibility. After doing that for 12 years, I decided I should see what else there was out there. That's when I went back to school for my MBA, and at the same time decided to see what the corporate world was all about.
So I got an internship at Fairchild Semiconductor. I was there for three years and graduated from school and said, "Corporate's okay, but I've got to be in food." I'm a food guy. I've been in food since I was 15 years old. My boss had moved over and he was at Barber Foods. I had been in touch with him and he said, "They're looking for a marketing manager here." I applied there and worked over there. And I said, "You know, being in the food business is great, I don't really think corporate is for me."
And my wife kept saying, "Honey, you've got to be your own boss." So it had to be food related, it had to be my own place, and I wasn't going to open a restaurant because I've worked in restaurants and I didn't want the restaurant hours. And so it was in the summer of 06, we were sitting on the beach and she said, "Honey, why don't you just open a little food store?" I said, "That makes sense."
How did you finance the business?
Friends and family. It was family for the property and we actually are using home equity for capital.
Why did you choose that route?
From a very simple perspective, I don't want to be beholden to anybody. I don't want people to be coming in and questioning what I'm doing because that sort of blows the whole thing of being your own boss. When I started talking to the bank they started saying, "Oh, we can give you a business loan," and what it ended up turning into was a home equity line of credit. So we were in a position that we hadn't really tapped our home for equity for anything else and this was it. We're building the future here.
How do you attract customers?
A number of ways. One is we did some initial adverting with the Forecaster [weekly newspaper]. We had a flier that we put into a lot of the local businesses that I do business with. The location certainly is a part of it because we're right here on the [intersection], and then we also donate to a lot of local good causes. So there are some school auctions that were having fundraisers that we donated to. It's been both in gift cards and we'll put together antipasto platters or party platters or sandwich platters. Word of mouth has been huge.
How did you decide on the name of the business?
I was really looking for a name that was fairly timeless and that would also allow me to go wherever I wanted it to. That it wouldn't be, "This is a deli," or "This is a sandwich shop." And you know, this is really building something for my kids, and not as an inheritance, but to give them something as they grow up to work in.
So my first grader, he comes in here Wednesdays after school and he helps make cookies and he helps clean out the deli cases and he runs the cash register. He's really good at the cash register. The other thing is, if I'm going to be spending so much of my time here, which you have to, it's got to be a place that your family can come to and feel vested in.
Interview by Kerry Elson
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