Cleveland, Part 2

Yesterday, Thursday, Sara and I had a couple of really interesting interviews. First, we went to On The Rise, a bakery on Fairmount and South Taylor. The weather was beautiful, so we were able to interview one of the owners and founders of the bakery outside. We talked to Jennifer, the wife of the founder of the bakery, and she and her husband, Adam, started the bakery about ten years ago. They have been very successful for all ten years, and she shared with us some of the main reasons for their success. First off, On The Rise doesn’t really find that they compete with many other nearby bakeries because all of the bakeries are specialized and find their own niches – they don’t even compete with larger franchises that sell baked goods, such as Starbucks or Panera. The best form of advertisement for the business is through word of mouth. Jennifer mentioned how they would occasionally advertise in a local newspaper, but other than that, most of their customers come because they have heard about it from others. The location of the bakery also plays a huge role in how the business does. Because it is located in a neighborhood environment, many of the customers are able to walk there and can stay for hours, sitting either inside or outside while talking to others. Also, the fact that there are several nearby schools and programs brings more people to the store. We would say that the biggest point that Jennifer touched upon was the fact that it’s important to stay true to one’s vision – that is, a business should learn to say no to opportunities for it to grow, because sometimes it’s important for a business to maintain its quality and personality by not becoming more of a franchise.

Later in the day, we visited Bialy’s Bagels, and we were able to talk to the owner’s wife, Ellen. Her parents had founded the business 47 years ago, and it has been extremely successful ever since. Bialy’s has very little trouble competing with other bagel franchises, such as Bruegger’s or Einstein’s. Some of the reasons for this are due to their loyal customers, word of mouth, and the simplicity of the products. When Ellen talked about their customers, she mentioned how many of them were local and knew the employees on a first-name basis. The employees often know specific orders of customers, making the process simple and personal. Bialy’s doesn’t advertise, and they depend completely on word of mouth. They trust their customers a great deal to spread the word and to continue buying their bagels there. According to Ellen, an advantage to owning the local business was the job security, for if the business did well, she never had to worry about getting laid off because she had control and the business was simple. Yet the disadvantage to that was the fact that she and her husband do a lot of the work – they are active employees, not observant management. Both of us were very surprised to hear that Bialy’s bakes around 12,000 bagels a day, and there is someone working there for every hour of the day - they even begin to bake their bagels at 9:30pm the night before. With the bagels that they don’t sell in a day, they will donate some to homeless shelters, sell some to a company that makes bagel chips, and deliver bunches to colleges, hospitals, and delis.

Through all of these interviews, we are both learning a lot that small, local businesses are often the way to go, for they keep things simple and personal, and they are very beneficial to the local economy.