Stew Leonard Jr., president and CEO of the Stew Leonard”™s group of grocery stores, is waiting for me at the entrance to his Yonkers store, at the end of the drive that also bears his name.
Flanked by Yonkers store vice-president Christian Cruz and Leonard”™s nephew, Andrew Hollis, he”™s chatting with two guys I assume to be friends or colleagues, but as it turns out are a couple of customers Leonard has only just met. As I am about to discover, talking with random customers is something Leonard clearly loves to do.
“We”™re actually from Brooklyn,” one of these two keen shoppers tells him. “The East Meadow (Long Island) store is probably closer, but we just love your Yonkers store.” We are standing by the candy apples and Stew thrusts a couple into the Brooklyn guys”™ hands. Then he turns to Cruz. “By the way, what did we do in these last week?” “Candy apples?” Cruz muses. “Around $17,000.”
Leonard, who took over the business from his father, Stew Leonard Sr., in 1991, is a well-preserved 62 years, with a full head of grey/black hair and an engagingly sweet smile. As we start our circuit of the store, he tells me his typical day starts around 10 a.m. “The older I get,” he says, “the later I want to come in. No more of those 7 a.m. starts.”
Photographs courtesy Stew Leonard”™s.
”˜Like a Honeycrisp on steroids”™
His working day usually begins with what he calls STC ”” “Stew”™s traffic control.” “Today,” he says, “we talked about the aftermath of Halloween, the holidays, turkey and all the rest.” The meeting usually lasts about 90 minutes, after which Leonard calls his father. “I check in with him every day, or he calls me.”
No sooner have the guys from Brooklyn left us, when a lady comes up and says the taste of her favorite sausage has changed. “We”™ll look into that right away,” says Cruz, almost clicking to attention and making a note on his phone. Then, an older gentleman in a checked shirt and sandals stops Leonard to say hello. “Have you just come in from Hawaii or something?” Leonard teases him, looking down at the guy”™s sockless feet, spontaneously friendly and natural. He”™s a model of great public relations and shoppers love him as much as he loves them.
The day before we meet, he was in Newington, Connecticut, and Nanuet in Rockland County. Another day he”™ll do the Long Island stores. There are now seven Stew Leonard”™s stores in total ”” three in Connecticut, three in New York and one in New Jersey, along with their adjoining wine stores.
In the hours I spend with Leonard, there is no interval longer than two minutes when someone doesn”™t approach him, or call out to him across an aisle. If there is such a thing as a celebrity grocer, Stew Leonard Jr. is that man. And as we progress through the store ”” stopping, talking, tasting ”” the man never lets up. “See this apple, it”™s an EverCrisp ”” like a Honeycrisp on steroids.” “The Mozzarella, try some ”” is it too salty?” “The pink pineapple? Did you ever taste anything like this?” (For the record, I didn”™t.)
We pass a chestnut stand and Stew mentions he would like to start roasting chestnuts in-store. “The smell of New York City,” he enthuses, musing on whether he would be able to roast in store from a safety standpoint. “For us, it”™s all about the smell inside. We love smells.”
He loves sell-by dates, too, noting that most of their prepared foods are made fresh daily. “A friend of mine told me about a sign he saw in CVS, which said, “Please notify us immediately if you see any products which are out of date.” He throws up his hands while roaring with laughter. “I mean, where was the management?”
”˜10 miles of jars laid side by side”™
With so much of Stew Leonard”™s business predicated on prepared foods, Leonard admits that their recipes are not always original, but says the company adapts what others are already doing. Stew Leonard”™s improves on it, he says, and sells it at the most competitive price. I mention that the expression I was taught for this practice was “borrowing with pride.” “I probably shouldn”™t even say this,” says Leonard, “but our R and D department stands for ”˜retrieve and duplicate.”™”
As we round a gentle curve toward the dairy produce, another stranger stops him to say how excited she is to see him “for real.” “You taught me to eat breakfast,” she gushes, referring to a TV segment in which Leonard extolled the virtues of a good first meal of the day. No sooner does she move on then a young couple approach and ask for a selfie with him.
Selfie sorted, we run into store chef Chris Papp, who is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park. “What have you got coming up for us?” asks Leonard. “Our two best sellers right now, both for Thanksgiving and Christmas, are the dinner-for- eight filet mignon, and one that knocks the door down ”” our dinner-for-four surf and turf,” rhapsodizes Papp. “Cold-water Maine lobster tails, filet mignon ”” you can”™t beat it,” affirms Leonard.
But he is momentarily distracted as a bearded, robed and crucifix-wearing ”” likely Eastern Orthodox ”” clergyman brushes past the shrimp counter. “Hi, I”™m Stew Leonard,” announces Leonard, extending a hand. “Oh, I”™ve been to many of your stores,” the man of the cloth says with a smile, clearly delighted. “You know, my wife is Serbian Orthodox,” Leonard puts in quickly, instantly making another new friend.
We progress a few steps and advance to the Italian section. Leonard relates how his father had called him up one morning to say he wasn”™t crazy about the store”™s chicken Marsala. Leonard knew a little Italian restaurant where everyone went just for the chicken Marsala. “So, we went and got some and had all the chefs taste it. Then we tweaked our recipe a little bit. And now we have the greatest chicken Marsala. And you know how we know it”™s the greatest? My father likes it.”
Meanwhile, Hollis, a third-generation Leonard on his mother”™s side ”” informs his uncle that the projected number of jars of Italian sauce they will sell in the two-week run-up to Christmas will exceed 30,000. “That”™s 10 miles of jars laid side by side ”” all the way from Yonkers to Yankee Stadium,” Hollis says, beaming.
A run on turkey in August
Leonard is known to attribute the success of the company to its emphasis on customer service and care of its employees, which is borne out by the fact that a large number of staff have been at the store since it opened, in 1999. “When I”™m here, I like to spend time not just with the customers but the people that work here,” he tells me, as we head through a service door into the back-of-house bakery and meet Michele Herrera, who has been at the store for 14 years.
Herrera is now head of the bakery department. I admire her challa bread and the glossy, all-butter brioche buns made to complement the stores”™ famous hamburgers, while Leonard greets her like an old friend before introducing us. “You know why Michele”™s happy today? Because she just got her new ovens,” he says, pointing out a hard-to-miss row of gleaming, double-width, 8-foot tall, American-made Baxter ovens.
Leaving the bakery, he spies an employee he hasn”™t seen before. “Are you new?” he asks. “Yes ”” two weeks,” says the new recruit, whose badge announces she is Marcie. “And I”™m excited to be here.” “Well, we”™re happy to have you, Marcie. We always need great people,” Leonard adds.
Back on the floor with his small entourage, there is something of the prophet about him. A big man, he is nevertheless quiet and unassuming, but with an aura which is almost palpable. Staff and customers alike just seem to sense or know “Stew” is in the area. This is the closest thing you get to grocer royalty.
“What I”™m looking for is to see that everything is nice and well-lit, that everything looks fresh and appealing and how full the shelves are,” continues Leonard, as we walk past a banana cart and he tweaks the plastic banana that bursts into the famous Chiquita Banana routine. “I can never resist doing that,” he says, chuckling. (With some of its staff dressed in costume and a roll-call of animatronic characters, Stew Leonard”™s isn”™t shy about adding a pronounced element of kitsch to the shopping experience.)
In the meat department, we meet manager Rocco Riccardi (who happens to be a cousin of Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano.) “I always bust his chops when I come through here,” says Leonard, casually picking up a packet of lamb ribs, so that I”™m uncertain whether or not this is meant to be a double-entendre. With the holidays approaching, he quizzes Riccardi on sales and hears that turkey sales are “insane,” with an element of panic-buying possibly brought about by the pandemic. “For the first time in our history,” Leonard informs me, “we sold a trailer-load of turkeys in August.”
And in the fish department, manager Fred Papp, who is chef Papp”™s father and has been with the company 30 years, fills Leonard in on the piscine state of play. “Lobster tails are off the charts, but the king crab is getting very scarce,” he reports. I comment on how inviting the yards-long fish counter looks, with its shiny, polished chrome and sparkling-fresh fish. “What the customer doesn”™t realize,” says Papp, “is that it takes us three to four hours each day to set up, and two to three to break down.” He likes his fish counter staff to look well-presented, too ”” and they do, in spotless white jackets and aprons.
The afternoon is drawing on. At 4 p.m., Fox News”™ Inside Edition, where Leonard is a regular guest, is coming in to do a segment on holiday food. He will be talking a great deal of turkey.
Through a final door and we find ourselves in the wine store, which, as Leonard remarks and not in jest, “is the one department I have to take a sample from before I leave.” After chatting with the store”™s wine specialist, Paige Donahoo, he selects a modest Pinot Noir, which he says he and wife Kim will drink that evening with the lamb chops he picked up earlier for dinner at their home in Westport. (Married for 38 years, he tells me he and his wife “love to just sit at home and talk.”) I ask if he cooks. “Oh yes, I love to cook,” he says. “And I love anything char-grilled. When the smoke alarm goes off, that”™s how I know it”™s done.”
A senior mother and her lookalike daughter smile excitedly as they pass and recognize him. “Hey, I love to see two sisters shopping together,” Leonard greets them. I grimace at the corny quip. “Never fails,” he says, as the “sisters” go off, cooing, “Ooh, we just love your store.”
Tomorrow, Leonard will be up at 5 a.m. to fly to California for a family baptism, but he will be back before the end of the week and the whole process will begin again. Business is what drives him, which is perhaps appropriate for a man who, after all, has his own name on the drive.
Stew Leonard”™s is at 1 Stew Leonard Drive. For more, visit stewleonards.com.
