After 30 years serving Manhattan, the owners of Manhattan Chili Co. are getting a second wind in the suburbs. Husband and wife team Bruce Sterman and Luba Pincus plan to build a taco and chili chain in Westchester, starting in Pleasantville.
“I want to sink my roots into Westchester,” Sterman said.
Pincus and Sterman, who live in Manhattan, opened a quick-service chili and taco restaurant on Marble Avenue in June. It is the fifth restaurant they have opened but the first in Westchester. It also serves as a production facility for their chili bar in the Grand Central Terminal dining concourse and will supply more locations that open in the future.
The couple started their first restaurant on Bleecker Street in 1984. Rent hikes led them to move to the Times Square area, where they owned two restaurants. A triple rent increase forced them to close their last location, in the Ed Sullivan Theater building, where “Late Show with David Letterman” is filmed. They opened the Grand Central chili bar in 2006 and soon after began wholesale manufacturing, with Whole Foods as their first customer.
- Bruce Sterman and Luba Pincus, owners of Manhattan Chili Co. Photo by Danielle Brody
Going wholesale prompted them to make their food an all-natural product. Sterman said he carefully researches and sources all the ingredients to ensure they are truly natural. The local-agriculture trend brought him to sell his chili at Westchester farmers markets, where he found receptive customers and reunited with some of the company”™s original chili community.
“On four Saturdays I met people whose first date had been in our backyard garden at the Bleecker Street restaurant,” Sterman said. “They were so astonished, thrilled, delighted, and one of them said, ”˜Why aren”™t you in Westchester?”™”
That, among other factors, made the couple less Manhattan-centric when thinking about the next step for their business, Sterman said.
In 2011, they stopped supplying Whole Foods. The grocery chain no longer considered them one of their  local Northeast vendors because they had moved their manufacturing to Tulsa, Okla., and freezer warehousing to Chicago, Sterman said.
Problems with co-packers following recipes also led the company to shift out of wholesale manufacturing. Manhattan Chili needed to use a co-packer certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to be able to sell across state lines. Sterman and Pincus said they have specific, time-tested methods to achieve the chili recipes like the popular “Numero Uno,” with ingredients like coarse ground beef, toasted cumin and cocoa. The couple said the co-packers often took shortcuts, like leaving out ingredients or skipping steps.
They decided to take control of cooking their recipes and looked to Westchester for a location that would serve as their own production facility for their chain. Moving into the fully built Pleasantville restaurant, which used to be Louie & Johnnies Cheese Steaks & Clam Bar, gave them a preparation kitchen and storage space, and saved them remodeling and building expenses.
The restaurant gives Sterman and Pincus the space and stability to grow the business. With a long-term lease and 3,000 square feet in the two-floor building, there is potential to supply up to eight locations, they said. They cook the chili and tacos four to five days a week and pack them in portable boil bags, which supply the Grand Central and Pleasantville restaurants. The boil bags and the “electric bar” ”” portable, plug-in equipment with tubs for chili ”” allow the product to go anywhere. Cooking the chili and tacos only requires boiling water and plugging in the bar.
Sterman and Pincus have their sights set on opening chili and taco stands similar to the Grand Central location. Sterman said he has thought about establishing a food truck as well. He said he isn”™t formally looking, but he is interested in busy towns near train lines and major roads, like White Plains or Tarrytown.
Once the restaurant becomes a chain, Sterman wants to open his own USDA-approved factory in Westchester. That would allow him to supply his locations, distribute wholesale again, cross state lines and have a factory store.
Sterman said he predicts the business will expand enough for the factory in three to five years, and it would cost about $1 million to build. He”™s working on a business plan and hopes to find a financial partner. He said he would work with the Hudson Valley Economic Development Corp.; Manhattan Chili Co. recently joined the agency”™s Food & Beverage Alliance.
For now, Pincus and Sterman are focusing on growing the Pleasantville business and adjusting to working in the suburbs. They have connected with local organizations, sent mailings for the first time and changed their sign to be readable at 30 mph. In Manhattan, Pincus said the location itself or a newspaper review could bring in customers.
“Here you have to put in much more effort to get there, so we”™re learning all of that,” she said.
Pincus said it was difficult to open the restaurant in the summer with students gone and many people traveling on the weekends, which are normally good days for business. Sterman said the restaurant is getting close to profitability.
“I”™ll give it a very Manhattan spin,” he said. “I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it is not an oncoming train.”
The customer base is growing, and often one customer is a stand-in for several when they eat in the restaurant and order something else to take home for their family. The biggest surprise to the couple is the amount of delivery orders they receive. Orders from Seamless, Grubhub and their website make up about 60 percent of business. Sterman said he will drive 10 miles in any direction to deliver.
Fulfilling deliveries and managing the Pleasantville location, Sterman is getting to know his customers and his new community. He often gets requests to open Manhattan Chili Co. in their towns. With a production facility in Pleasantville and customers throughout the county, he”™s open to suggestions.
