Published: March 26, 2009 08:00 pm      

Area mom and pop shops abound

Husband-and-wife teams tackle small businesses

TRAVERSE CITY -- Toiling away in a mom and pop business is a familiar duty for Leland restaurateur Skip Telgard. He's never known any other way.

Telgard's grandparents launched the Bluebird restaurant along the Leland River in the 1920s, and his parents expanded into one of Leelanau County's most popular dining establishments. Today, Telgard and his wife Lynn run the show, the third generation to take on the steep workload and long hours that drive most mom and pop operations.

"Everyone who's been involved in this business has taken it very seriously," Telgard said. "The Bluebird is a success not because of me. It was my parents and grandparents."

Husband-and-wife teams run a wide variety of businesses in the Grand Traverse region. They own and operate restaurants, retail and specialty stores, ice cream shops, professional offices, funeral parlors, small manufacturing plants and even the local minor league baseball team.

Many of them may be too busy to celebrate, but Sunday marks the annual observance of National Mom and Pop Business Owners Day to recognize family owned and operated businesses across the country.

The observance is the brainchild of a Florida man named Rick Segel, in honor of a women's hat shop called Ruth's that his parents opened March 29, 1939, in Everett, Mass. The business grew into a women's specialty store and moved to Medford, Mass., according to the Holiday Insights Web site.

"You kind of have to live and breathe your job when you own your own business," said baker Gerard Grabowski, who started Pleasanton Brick Oven Bakery with his wife Jan Shireman 16 years ago, next to their home in Manistee County's Bear Lake.

It gave the couple a chance to work side-by-side and also start a family, and Grabowski recalls many hours when they labored with children strapped to their bodies.

"That was the motivation we had for setting up the business next to our home," Grabowski said. "The whole mom and pop thing made a lot of sense."

Pleasanton's steady growth led to the opening of a new bakery at The Village at Grand Traverse Commons in Traverse City, where they continue to work together.

"It was an opportunity to collaborate creatively on a whole new endeavor," Grabowski said. "It was much bigger than anything we'd ever done before."

Amy and Greg Gembis opened Pop-Kies gourmet popcorn shop on Front Street in downtown Traverse City almost five years ago. It was their first business venture together, but the couple met years earlier and had a trial run while working together at a Chicago hotel.

"If that experience as co-workers hadn't worked out, it might have given us a second thought about working together," Amy Gembis said. "But we both work well under pressure, having been in the restaurant business for so many years."

Mom and pop business owners said their jobs can be both rewarding and challenging. It can be difficult to leave behind problems at home or the workplace, and niceties like vacations or even a weekend off can be months or years apart.

"Sometimes it can put a lot of added pressure on a relationship," Telgard said. "But there's also a great feeling of mutual accomplishment when things go well."

Job security is another advantage.

"It's not like you can fire each other either," Greg Gembis said.