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Minority Businesspersons Of The Year - In a Hot-Stove League of Their Own
Pittman brought their little slice of soul-food heaven to downtown New Haven
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Business New Haven
1/20/2003
By: Karen Singer
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Sandra Pittman has a passion for cooking. Her husband, Miguel, has a penchant for business.
The results of their partnership can be seen - and savored - at Sandra's Place, an upscale soul-food eatery in the Whitney Ave./Audubon arts district of New Haven.
It's the third, and most elaborate, incarnation of their restaurant business, which began in the late 1980s as a take-out place on Congress Avenue.
It's also a testament to their hard work and determination, coupled with a little help from the city, state and Yale University.
On the occasion of its first anniversary, the Whitney Avenue location already is operating in the black, according to the 39-year-old Miguel. What also sets it apart from similar restaurants is its diverse clientele, including Yale students, business types, retirees and others enticed by barbecued ribs, sweet potato pie, macaroni and cheese and other calorie-laden offerings.
Sandra Pittman showed an early aptitude for cooking. "I learned from my mother when I was seven or eight," she recalls. Mom was used to preparing large quantities of food first as family cook for her siblings, and later for her six children. "I had her attributes," Sandra adds.
Traditional soul food traces its origins to the South, where slaves learned to create tasty dishes from turnip tops, pig's feet and other throwaway foods and leftovers from the plantation house. According to historians, the cuisine was dubbed "soul food" in the 1960s.
Soul food's secret is in the seasoning, according to Sandra.
"You've got to know how to season," she says. However, it's a skill that's hard to master. She doesn't use measurements for salt, garlic, thyme, onions, green peppers and other such additives, which makes it hard to give recipes to customers who'd like to replicate dishes. "I would like to write a cookbook one day."
Miguel's entrepreneurial spirit also surfaced at an early age. By the time he had turned 11, he says he was selling penny candy and notebook paper to fellow students, and charging interest to those who didn't have enough money to pay up-front. He was trying to help support his family, then headed by his mother.
Miguel Pittman grew up on New Haven's Winthrop Avenue, just four blocks from the big mansions on Prospect Street, but a cultural divide away. "I used to watch the kids at the Foote School, and all they had compared to what we had," he says. Today, his nine-year-old son attends the private school.
"I always wanted to own my own business," he says.
In 1989, Miguel decided to transform his dream into action. He and Sandra had been married two years, and had the first of four children.
"He could see I put a whole lot into what I enjoy doing" - cooking - "and asked me, 'Honey, would you like to go open up a restaurant?'"
The notion was not that far-fetched. At the time, Sandra was helping her mother cook dinners at their church, a practice resulting in weekly requests for meals from several local companies.
"They had several accounts, with Pratt & Whitney, Sargents and others, and were making probably 100 dinners a night on Friday and Saturday nights," Miguel says. The enterprise was straining the limits of a home kitchen, and in need of a deep fryer and other commercial equipment.
So Miguel quit his job as an automobile salesman to try his hand at the restaurant business. "The initial investment was $1,900," he says, adding he didn't need to seek outside financing because his father owned the first building he and Sandra rented.
S&D's restaurant opened in September 1989 at 560 Congress Avenue, but was renamed Sandra's within a few months. It had one table, and served up take-out food six days a week.
Even with a small customer base, "Things were very intense for the first few years in terms of building up the business," Miguel recalls.
In 1992, Sandra's moved a block down to 636 Congress Avenue, another of Miguel's father's buildings, and a space that could handle around 30 sit-down customers.
It marked a major expansion of the business. "It took us about four years to get things in order," Miguel Pittman says.
During a vacation to the Bahamas in the mid-1990s, he began brainstorming about "how to bring the business to the next level." But he quickly realized that "certain issues had to be addressed so when opportunity comes I am available and have my house in order."
Among other issues, Miguel Pittman needed to repair his credit, which he says he accomplished by reading a book on the subject and following its suggestions relentlessly.
"I was determined to change my credit and make it good, and it took about a year and a half," he explains. He also began sharpening his skills by taking business courses at a community college, and became competent at using computer software to monitor the growing operation.
Opportunity came knocking about two years ago, when Bruce Alexander, Yale's vice president for New Haven and state affairs, came to the Congress Avenue restaurant for lunch and asked to meet the owner.
The conversation, Miguel says, resulted in an offer from Yale to provide a larger space for Sandra's. "To be honest, I thought he was blowing smoke," he says of the serendipitous encounter.
Within three months, however, the Pittmans signed a lease for the building at 46 Whitney Avenue. The arrangement is part of Yale's community investment program, which currently rents space to 71 businesses, 66 of which are independent retailers.
"We have a diverse portfolio and make sure to go after strong local, independent entrepreneurs," says Michael Morand, associate vice president of Yale's community relations office.
The Pittmans also borrowed $150,000 in state and city loans to start the new venture. "We spent more than that on the interior," Miguel says, as the couple hired an architect to design the restaurant's striking interior space.
The attention to detail shows in the abstract design, in which large purple rectangles divide tables along bare brick walls, and soft lighting accentuates the dark wicker chairs. The soundtrack is jazz, with live music on Saturday nights, and poetry readings every first Saturday of the month.
The menus at both restaurants share similarities, but the Whitney Avenue location, which can accommodate nearly 90 hungry diners, offer breakfast items as well as brunch on weekends. Both serve lunch and dinner seven days a week.
Sandra's Place opened on January 23, 2002, to great fanfare fueled by extensive press coverage.
"It was unbelievable; we had lines outside the door for several months," Miguel Pittman recalls.
Business remains nearly as robust as Sandra's meals, and the hard work is paying off.
"The high traffic, high profile Whitney/Audubon area has become more lively over the past few years," Morand says, Sandra's Place has become "a very good addition, with a combination of quality product - tasty food and a new type of food for that area - and helping to grow foot traffic."
Yale's Alexander agrees.
"Miguel and Sandra Pittman and their children, are a great, hard-working American family, and we are pleased we've been able to provide a restaurant location for them which has proven to be so popular," Alexander says.
"It's a success story, and a good PR [public relations] piece for everyone, " Miguel says. The restaurant, he adds, is "doing very well."
As far as the PR goes, Miguel Pittman currently is featured in a TV spot running on WTNH-TV in which he in talks about how Yale helped him establish Sandra's Place.
Over the years, word of mouth and an occasional radio spot have been the primary advertising vehicles for the business. Several years ago, the Pittmans promoted the Congress Avenue location with T-shirts, and it's a strategy they're thinking of revisiting.
Despite the eateries' growth, now up to about 30 employees, the two restaurant operations remain very much a family business. Sandra still cooks daily, mainly at the Whitney Avenue location, while her mom makes dishes for Congress Avenue customers.
"She's famous for meat loaf and sweet potatoes," Sandra says. Miguel's grandmother also contributes, sending home-grown green peppers from North Carolina.
All four children help out by washing dishes, clearing tables and doing other chores, and each has an entrée named for him or her on the menu.
"The next cook is going to be my daughter Sharwyn, who is 11," says Sandra Pittman with obvious pride.
The pair likewise delight in "seeing the expression of people's faces when they are enjoying the food," Miguel Pittman says, adding, "I get excited when things are running smoothly."
Meanwhile, the Pittmans have yet higher business aspirations.
Miguel is considering "changing the product" at the Congress Avenue restaurant, although he's not saying what form that might take. He does, however, share thoughts about forthcoming plans to expand Sandra's Place by franchising the operation in Hartford and Stamford.
"Anything I get in my mind to do, I will accomplish," Miguel Pittman says.
With his track record and his wife's culinary magic, those plans may very well materialize.
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