I’ve been blessed to work for family-owned businesses throughout my career, starting with the Abdow’s restaurant chain, my first real job besides babysitting. Restaurant work taught me how to multi-task, prioritize, work as a team and be aware of what was going on around me. I’ll never forget the time I dropped four Big Boy hamburgers in front of co-owner Ronnie Abdow. Sure I was fired, I froze. He calmly told me to go tell the kitchen I needed four more burgers “on the rail” and he would clean up the breakage. I was stunned.
My first job out of college was in the advertising department of the Albert Steiger Company, another family-owned business. That job taught me how to believe in my own talent, work with all types of people and juggle deadlines. It was hectic, but I loved every moment of my retail career, and the many Steiger family members I met and worked for.
Working for The Reminder – another family-owned business when I joined in the mid 1990s – taught me a lot about connecting with the community. I’ll always be grateful that Carlo, Chris and Dan Buendo took a chance on a novice reporter. Working for their growing newspapers taught me so much about how our cities and towns work, and helped me find my voice as a writer.
I now work for another family-owned business – Advance Publishing – one with much more clout, but the same focus on community, and a vision that has taken Reminder Publishing further than I ever imagined it would go – to 10 free weekly newspapers, a daily paper, and two monthly publications, including Prime.
It’s this appreciation for what family businesses have taught me that made me feel so honored to be able to talk with the Falcone family about their family’s business – Rocky’s Hardware. I connected immediately to the evolution of their business from a single store – and an idea – to a multi-store operation. Our local Rocky’s is now the neighborhood hardware store in states throughout the Northeast and in Florida, an accomplishment the retailer in me greeted with awe.
The Falcones are a family with a vision, but also one with a finger on the pulse of the consumer, something that has prompted the many iterations of their hardware business through the years, and helped the family business to weather the trials of the coronavirus pandemic.
The next generation is already looking at how retail is changing, and I expect we will see more great ideas from the Falcone family in the near future.
For the complete story, see this month’s feature.
Win Yard Goats tickets!
You asked for more contests in Prime, so here’s your next chance to win! We’re giving away two pairs of tickets to the Hartford Yard Goats July 17 afternoon game in Hartford’s Dunkin’ Donuts Park! Look for the entry form for your chance to win.
As always, thanks for reading,
Debbie Gardner
dgardner@thereminder.com
