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Founders Award - Sea Change
After a half-century of making customers happy, Andrew Amarante has groomed a new generation to take his restaurant and catering business to new heights
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Business New Haven
1/20/2003
By: Anne-Marie Brungard
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By his own admission, Andrew Amarante loves food, loves his family and loves to dream - although not necessarily in that order.
Born and raised in New Haven, he worked during summers at shoreline restaurants - bussing tables and dreaming of one day becoming a chef. Amarante attended Hamilton School in New Haven and, like many of his peers at the time, left school to go to work during the Great Depression. From 1944-46 Amarante served his country overseas in the U. S. Navy.
Armed with his dream, he came back home and enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America, which at that time was located in downtown New Haven. A graduate of the second class in 1948, Amarante went to work at the Sachem Coffee Shop on Whitney Avenue.
Under the tutelage of renowned chef Andrew Valente, Amarante's dream became more than a fantasy as he prepared to make it his life's reality.
Somewhere in between all the hours he spent building a catering business, Amarante met, courted and married his sweetheart, Marie. His initial foray into the catering business began in the basement of his parent's home. In 1957, with his wife and small children in tow, Andrew opened his first restaurant, a luncheonette on State Street in New Haven.
Teresa and James Amarante had always supported their son's efforts, and their influence was pervasive. The Amarantes were a close-knit family and their sense of family values was inculcated and passed on to each generation. Over time, the Amarantes took the notion of "family business" to a whole new level.
Mom Teresa could be found with her sleeves rolled up, "riding high in the kitchen," recalls Andrew Amarante. "I always knew I could do it," he said, "but I was just a little scared like everybody else."
The next five years were spent building the company's reputation with a clientele that included the likes of the Knights of Columbus and the Elks Club, all the while catering weddings on the weekends.
Andrew Amarante has a keen eye for cuisine - and for an opportunity.
In 1962 he leased the San Remo Restaurant - today known as Anthony's Ocean View - for $125 a month. With more seating, a larger, better-equipped kitchen and prime location, Amarante was positioned to further grow the business. The lease figure soon rose to $900 a month, and Amarante could have folded under the burden, but once again his family members stepped in.
His father James gave up his construction business to come on board and help out in the business tending bar. Grace Tortora, Andrew's sister, joined the team as assistant chef. Anthony still credits his sister with being the backbone of the San Remo. It was an opportunity for Amarante to spread his wings.
Andrew spent much of his time "chasing the business," he recalls now, gaining the trust of new clients and expanding his reach in a hyper-competitive business. His kitchen was in trusted hands, and Grace helped to establish the catering side of the business so that Anthony could focus on the thing he loved the most: weddings.
In 1967, a new opportunity for expansion presented itself. With a handshake, Andrew Amarante sealed a deal to buy the restaurant now known throughout the Northeast as Amarante's Seacliff Inn. Of the new site almost next door to his previous restaurant, Amarante reminisces, "I took one look at the view and knew in my heart that this was what I wanted - it was a dream come true."
It was also a location that Amarante remembered well from his childhood. "I used to swim [here] as a kid for ten cents," he recalls. "The day I brought the place I let everyone swim for nothing."
And Teresa Amarante, it turned out, was not only a force to be reckoned with in the kitchen - but chief financial whiz of the business, too. Somehow, on a shoestring, she had managed to save enough money from the business to supply $25,000 as a down payment on the new location.
The structure that had been used as a roller-skating rink in warm-weather months was insulated and converted into a new kitchen. Additional renovations included enclosing a porch on the main building and adding new windows to emphasize the panoramic view of New Haven Harbor and Long Island Sound.
Before it became a buzzword, "network marketing" was in fact the methodology the Amarantes employed to grow their business. Positive word-of-mouth referrals were, and remain today, the foundation of the business.
"In those days there were more caterers than restaurants," says Amarante. So with competition congesting the market, every good recommendation became the building block of a lasting relationship - the goal being to keep the client happy and coming back for more. Having clients such as the New Haven National Bank, and doing the catering for Union Trust's 50th anniversary bash didn't hurt, either.
Amarante was personally retained to cater for lavish voyages planned by Illinois Tool Works. Executives of the Chicago-based company would come to Branford to entertain clients during the summer months on its private yacht. Over a period of years Amarante and his handpicked crew traveled with the yacht for special events in New London, New York and Philadelphia. Some of the week-long excursions would call for daily trips back to the restaurant to prepare food for the following day.
One such yacht trip introduced Amarante to Wilfred Gooden, a construction and development company owner from Riverdale, N.Y. That relationship led to several catered parties at new high-rises in Harlem, introductions to the right Yale University personnel and a five-day trip to Jamaica with Amarante's team of seven to cater a party.
"I have made many friends in this business," Amarante says with not a little understatement.
Like any successful businessperson, Amarante has learned from his successes - as well as from his failures. An early rejected bid for catering services by one of Yale's sports teams shook his confidence, but bolstered his desire to succeed. A brief stint as owner of the Mountainside conference center in Meriden taught the restaurateur about over-extending. Travel, time and transportation issues forced him to give up the venture in favor of his family and his New Haven business.
While on a fishing trip to New London, Amarante discovered a freight barge for sale that seemed like a bargain at $11,500. He paid $500 to have it towed to New Haven. Sailing westward along the Sound the captain towing the vessel quickly discovered it was something less than seaworthy after it began to ride lower and lower from seawater entering the hull through previously undiscovered holes. The barge nearly didn't make it to New Haven Harbor.
Amarante devised a way to anchor it to the shore with steel cables and blacktopped the surface, creating a floating deck for outdoor parties and events. That particular waterborne amenity didn't last long, as city and state inspectors took issue with Amarante's lack of appropriate permits.
Amarante later found a way to satisfy his desire for outdoor entertaining while meeting building requirements. Additional improvements and renovations ended with the creation of the deck along the sea wall, with seating for 200 and its own bar and kitchen.
Andrew Amarante is not only business- and family-minded; he has always answered the call for his community, too. For years Fresh Air Fund events were hosted in the ballroom, raising badly needed funds for the non-profit organization. Amarante has supported civic organizations and local churches alike.
Amarante is a past president of the New Haven Civitan, and used his facility for summer fun for community children. Today, the company still supports local shelters, such as Columbus House, providing food for the city's homeless. Throughout the years he has extended his hand to employees and even competitors alike. Amarante has come to the aid of struggling caterers, joint-ventured for large catering projects, and helped at least two of his former chefs start their own business ventures.
At one time or another each of Amarante's six children and several of his 19 grandchildren have worked in the business. "We have always tried to make this a family affair," says Amarante, "I wish I could express the feeling that comes over me as I realize my wife, children, grandchildren, brother and sisters and especially my parents have been a part of this effort."
Each family member knows that he or she always has a home with the family business, but they also have the freedom and the opportunities created by their association with the business to pursue their own dreams. Some have ventured into education and other professional fields.
Not many years ago Andrew Amarante could still be found wielding ice picks and carving knives while revving up the chain saw for a lavish ice sculpture; or carefully designing a bride's Venetian table with pastries and fruits by the truckload. Today, semi-retired, Amarante still puts in daily appearances at the office and can be found sprucing up the garden or assisting in the kitchen with the vegetables.
Along the way, a new generation of Amarantes has taken the helm. Andrew Amarante's daughter, Grace Hurley, became president of the business in 2001. Grace got her start in the business in the early days as a bus girl and waitress, eventually moving into management positions. She completed her education in hotel and restaurant management at Bay Path College and the University of New Haven. She developed her father's taste for the business.
"We know who we are now," says Hurley. "He has made our job so easy, we wouldn't be where we are today without the foundation he built."
Grace's brother James Amarante heads the maintenance department, and brother-in-law Peter Garceau is the sales manager.
Hurley is hardly one to rest on her father's laurels. She supervises a staff that has grown to 30 (and swells to 60 or so during busy seasons). Change is good, allows Hurley. The company still relies on word-of mouth marketing, but Grace is making her mark by employing some newer tactics, including adding a corporate marketing staff and reaching out more to civic groups and corporations.
Part of the reason, Hurley explains, is a much more competitive business environment today.
"Clients are looking for a different type of caterer, more high-end and health-conscious, who can meet the need of the smart-consumer," she says.
Hurley recently introduced the newest division of the company, Marie's Traveling Bistro, named after her mother. The drop-off catering service specializes in small orders delivered directly to a location, meeting the needs of clients with smaller functions or those planning larger family gatherings.
Andrew Amarante's definition of a caterer is someone who can make something out of nothing. He himself has proven the truth of this time and again. Serving virtually every New Haven mayor, Connecticut governor, corporate and university dignitary to come down the pike over the latter half of the 20th century is an accomplishment Amarante could boast of if he chose.
But his greatest accomplishment is a simple one, repeated again and again: "It's when you serve a dinner party and walk out in your chef's hat and ask if everything is to their satisfaction - and [they] are overwhelmed."
The Amarante recipe for success: A generous helping of loyal family members. A few cups of creativity and even daring (e.g., the floating deck idea). A dash of flexibility, such as menus that meet specific and even arcane cultural and ethnic needs. All lavishly sprinkled with an indomitable desire to succeed.
Forty-three years and two generations in the oven, Amarante's is well along the path in preparing for the next generation to add its own magic to the mix.
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