Today's Guest

The Sandwich Shop, founded by Ricardo Picon and Clarisa Penzini, in Brooklyn, NY brings an innovative approach to the quintessential bread dish. Ricardo shares how COVID has impacted their business and the steps they’ve taken to keep the doors open. Ricardo was also a recipient of a Thryv Foundation Small Business Grant and speaks about how the grant helped them keep employees on payroll during the pandemic.

Follow on Social:

Episode Summary

The Sandwich Shop has been around for 7 years and was started by my wife, who is a trained chef. After her training, she worked in the fine dining industry for several years before deciding to take an innovative approach to make the simple sandwich more delicious. Her vision was to recreate the local flavors from the various places she had visited and infuse those flavors into each sandwich. My background was in advertising and branding so we put our skills together and went to work building the business. 

In a small business and especially a small restaurant you experience a series of pitfalls almost daily. It might be summertime and you get the call that the freezer is broken, so you go grab ice bags while you wait for the technician to arrive. When COVID hit it we quickly went into problem-solving mode. We had just decided to close the shop for a time when we got the call that one of our cooks had been diagnosed with COVID. So we kept the shop closed for 14 days and had cleaning crews come in to disinfect the space. Thankfully our employee that had gotten COVID was able to make a full recovery.

We were lucky in that our business was already doing about 80 percent takeout and delivery before the pandemic. We had the processes in place and our customers were accustomed to ordering from us in that way. Also, we had good relationships with the Pace University Small Business Development Center and after COVID hit they sent us links to all the various grant programs available, including the Thryv Foundation. 

The main advice I would share with other business owners during this season is to think about your business presence. What I mean is there are lots of businesses out there that don’t have a strong social media presence because they think it’s only something the larger companies can do. For example, when you go to our Instagram page, it looks very professional and often people are surprised to find out we are just a small shop. If social media isn’t your strength look for a freelancer you can hire. It doesn’t matter how humble your budget is, right now there are so many talented people out there that need work. 

Resources Shared

• The Sandwich Shop
• Pace University Small Business Development Center
• Thryv Foundation
  

Listener Reviews