Beechwood aged
D. Bertoline & Sons is a fourth-generation family-run business and there”™s no reason four more generations can”™t continue to run it.
The Peekskill-based beer wholesaler is celebrating 75 years, all of which took place in the city of Peekskill.
Dominick Bertoline, the chairman and CEO of the company, is part of the third generation of Bertoline”™s, along with his cousins John, Jim, and Thomas, who are all principals.
The four men all have children who work in the company in various capacities, so the family business is alive and well.
“It looks like the fourth generation is very committed, they could work here the next 25 or 30 years,” Dominick Bertoline said. “We could get to 100 years old one of these days.
The business started in 1933 when Bertoline”™s grandfather, Dominick A. Bertoline, was a junk dealer in Peekskill.
He one day obtained a beer license and began selling that on his junk truck along with whatever else was there.
“He began to realize the beer sold a lot better than the junk, so he started to sell only beer,” Dominick said.
D. Bertoline & Sons was born.
Dominick”™s three sons joined him in the business after World War II, and in 1959 his son Nicholas (the current chairman”™s father) took over the family business.
The Bertolines”™ warehouse was located on Water Street for the first several decades of existence. In 1977, they moved into a much larger warehouse also on Water Street to accommodate their expanding business.
In 1985, the Bertonlines began building their current facility on John Walsh Boulevard, and the next year moved in to their new place.
“It was a milestone for us, that”™s for sure,” Dominick said, of the 65,000 square-foot facility, 52,000 of which are dedicated to the warehouse.
The company has had a long relationship with Anheuser-Busch. It has been an A-B distributor since 1949 and in 2005 became an exclusive distributor of that brand.
The distribution territory D. Bertoline & Son”™s serves covers Westchester and Putnam counties.
Dominick Bertoline served on A-B”™s wholesaler advisory board, a group from around the country who meet regularly with the Busch family to discuss trends and business.
“We meet and tell them what”™s going on in the street,” Bertoline said.
In 1997, Bertoline was named chairman of the advisory board, representing the interests of 800 A-B wholesalers across the country.
His board work included a new equity contract between A-B and its distributors.
In 1999, August Busch III flew to Peekskill and threw a barbecue party on the D. Bertoline & Sons property to thank Dominick for his service as advisory board chairman.
D. Bertoline & Sons currently employs 120 people, 10 of whom are named Bertoline. The company has a sales department of 45 people to serve its 2,100 accounts.
Bertoline has grown much over the past 75 years and it continues to do so as the company is building a 10,000-square-foot addition to its current building. Groundbreaking is expected “any day now,” Dominick said.
And on June 6, there will be an official 75th anniversary celebration in Peekskill, with a performance by tenor Michael Amante in The Paramount Center for the Arts in downtown Peekskill.
The Budweiser Clydesdales will clop through Peekskill as part of the festivities.
“It”™s going to be a great celebration,” Dominick Bertoline said.