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[independently speaking]
Photo by Ed Dittenhoefer
Hot Wheels: Smith
acquired Hot Truck,
a longtime Cornell
University landmark,
to enhance Shortstop
Deli’s connection to the
community.
Home Slice
Ithaca c-store owner enriches his community one sandwich at a time
By Samantha Strong Murphey || [email protected]
B
ack in 1978, the ratio of convenience stores to gas pumps
wasn’t 1-to-1. Or at least
that’s how Albert Smith remembers it.
When he and his wife, Cindy, opened his
Ithaca, N.Y., convenience store in June of
that year, he included a small sandwich
counter but no gas pumps. Today, his
Shortstop Deli is a standout in a crowd
of fuel stops. Smith has managed to thrive
without entering the gas industry, largely
thanks to the sandwiches he started with.
Of the roughly $2 million Shortstop Deli
makes a year, $1.3 million is made via two
slices of bread.
Smith’s fate seemed entwined with
the college town from the start. An Ithaca
native, he attended Cornell University,
majoring in food industry management,
and got a job with H.J. Heinz Co. upon
graduating in 1971. After three years of
learning the retail sales ropes, he went to
work with his father and brothers as an
independent wholesale beer distributor
for the next five.
“The last part of that time, I was also
working on developing a c-store with a
foodservice presence,” Smith says.“I wanted
the heart of it to be a sandwich deli.”
He leased a 1,600-square-foot space in
a residentially zoned area of Ithaca at the
edge of the town’s main commercial district, got variance codes to put in a c-store,
and opened for business. A Yankees fan,
Smith named the store Shortstop Deli.
Topps baseball cards inspired the logo—an
abbreviated SS inside of a baseball.
After 12 years, Shor tstop Deli
expanded, adding 2,600 square feet. Walk
in the store today and you’ll see a deli
counter POS area directly in front of you.
Snack items and groceries distributed by
McLane Co. are off to the right in 25 feet
of two-sided gondola shelving, along with
16 cooler doors. But all that is there only
to help Shortstop Deli sell sandwiches.
Smith says his product offering is more
easily defined by what he doesn’t sell—
beer or tobacco—than what he does.
“It just wasn’t helping us sell sandwiches,” he says. “Age verification in a
college town becomes very tough. Lots of
confrontations asking for identification.
When we eliminate tobacco and beer,
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January 2013
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anything we have can be purchased by
any age.”
And people of any age can enjoy a
good sandwich.
“We call it our 34-year-old test
kitchen—the sandwich business inside a
c-store experiment,” he says.
‘Best of Ithaca’
Shortstop Deli has been voted customers’
favorite sandwich business in the Ithaca
Times “Best of Ithaca” awards for the past
25 years—and for good reason. Smith has
made sure to maintain quality as his business has evolved. It started with a 4-foot
unit. Orders were taken at the front and
made in the back. “It worked well for us
for a while, but eventually we wanted to
grow,” Smith says.
So he brought the sandwich unit up
front, allowing the sandwich maker to
interact with the customer, and extended
it to 18 feet. He added Lincoln Impinger
conveyor ovens and, with them, a variety
of hot subs to the menu. The deli’s No. 1
seller is the turkey sandwich, made with
Butterball Just Perfect meat. Customers
can also order side salads, freshly baked
cookies and soft drinks, the latter for as
little as 9 cents with the purchase of a
sandwich. And they are encouraged to
browse while they wait.
“Customers fill out a sandwich slip,
as opposed to a verbal order, and then
they are able to shop the store while the
sandwich is made,” Smith says.
A landmark in the deli’s evolution
came in 2000 when Smith bought Hot
Truck, a Cornell University icon parked in
front of a campus dormitory. Hot Truck,
which started in 1960, is famous for its
pizza subs, which Smith soon added to
his Shortstop menu. “Make a pizza on a
chunk of French bread, run it through
the oven and fold it up as a sandwich,” he
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says. “That’s the general idea.” He added
chicken subs to the Hot Truck menu and
replaced canned mushrooms with fresh
ones, but otherwise he let the tradition
stand as was.
“If you know any Cornellians, give
them a call and ask them about the Hot
Truck. They could tell you,” Smith says.
Today, the Hot Truck makes roughly
$136,000 a year, about 10% of Smith’s
total sandwich business.
If the university tradition doesn’t draw
college crowds, Smith’s hours just might.
In April 1980, he made the move to 24/7
hours and has been open every minute
since. “I love talking to young people in
their 20s in my store and telling them,
“Customers fill out a
sandwich slip, and then
they are able to shop the
store while the sandwich
is made.”
‘Hey! Every minute you’ve been alive,
we’ve been open for business.’ ”
The ‘Good Guy’
When the store opened, Cindy Smith
was at home with the couple’s children,
but when the last one went to school,
she went to work. “She is the heart of the
store,” Smith says of his wife. “If someone needs help—a customer, neighbor
or employee—she’s there. She’s the good
guy of Shortstop Deli.”
Cindy’s “heart” has ensured the deli
seeks to hire diversity that reflects the
Ithaca population and that it’s involved
with local youth groups and athletic
teams. Starting with the Cornell lacrosse
team in 1979, the store has offered travel
meals at cost to local college and high
school teams for athletes traveling to and
from away games. “When our kids were
athletes, away games meant no food or
junk food,” Smith says. If an athlete can’t
pay, Shortstop offers the meal for free.
The deli’s marketing is defined by
service to the community as well. “Our
advertising is this: Mrs. Jones is a regular
customer and her daughter is going to be
in a dance recital. She comes in to see if
we want to go into the program,” Smith
says, “and we go in the program, but it’s
really more to support Mrs. Jones and her
daughter than advertising.”
Winding Down
The Smiths have been in business long
enough to remember life before scanning
and POS software, but soon they’ll be
moving on. They’ve decided to sell the
store and retire in the next few years. Their
ideal buyer? Someone who has been highly
successful with many c-store locations but
has never developed a foodservice presence. Their “34-year-old test kitchen” has
given them lots of wisdom to pass on.
“We’ve gone through all the mistakes,”
Smith says. “We’ve found out what works
in a c-store environment.”
He says people should know up front
that foodservice is going to increase their
payroll. “You can’t have just one clerk,”
he says. And he also thinks that going
proprietary, having full ownership and
control over your foodservice business is
the best route. But his top advice? Fully
commit to it.
“The key is to make a commitment all
the way at the top—your CEO, your CFO.
Otherwise foodservice doesn’t stand a
chance,” he says. After 34 years at Shortstop Deli, Albert and Cindy Smith understand something about commitment.
“There’s nothing easy about the c-store
business. But you have to be committed to
making it go.” n