We were lucky to catch up with Allison Katz recently and have shared our conversation below.

Allison, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

Before I opened Ali Katz Kitchen, I knew that in order to make a small business work in our North Fork of Long Island community (that pre-COVID used to be VERY quiet in the Winter months), I would have to have a business plan that had multiple ways to earn income. Living in a resort community has both it’s positive and negatives and one of the positives (besides the beauty of the area), is that from May-December we are really busy but there was not really a large all year round customer base to support a lot of businesses. Many shops and restaurants closed in the Winter months and almost everyone limited their hours. That wasn’t an option for us. We could certainly take a vacation or staycation, but we couldn’t close for several months with no income.

When my husband Fritz and I first left NYC, the first people we had met out here were people in the food industry and local farmers. One of the issues that these farmers had were that they could not get value added products made on a regular basis to sell at their farm stands and at farmers markets. They didn’t have a place to do it or anyone to to do the physical cooking. So that’s where I started, first making quiches for one local organic chicken farm out of a commercial kitchen in the area. That business began to grow and include other products made from things other than eggs from their farm; chicken stock, pot pies, cookies…it’s a small community and as we met other farmers they had specific products they wanted to have produced. I worked on and tested recipes for them. Fritz would help me when he could, but at the time he had a job running a food truck for a local restaurant.

Five years ago we opened Ali Katz Kitchen, originally thinking we would continue to just do what we were doing, making value added product for the farmers and doing some wholesale for local shops and restaurants. But the space we rented had a storefront, and we figured why not take advantage of that and do retail 3 days a week while we did wholesale the rest of the time. Locals knew my baking from another business in town, and they were willing to follow me to the new location. So we opened the retail shop as a bakery with some jar salads to go, quiches and baked goods. It was still just me doing most of the cooking with Fritz helping out.

Cooking was my 2nd career, in the early 2000’s, I had gone to culinary school, but prior to that I had worked in the fashion industry as a merchandiser. So of course I could not let a storefront just sit there, and we incorporated a small gift shop into the space, where we sell little gifts, kitchen items, books, cards and other fun things.

When COVID arrived, Fritz lost his job and came to work with me full time. Like everyone else in the country who owned a small business, we had to pivot to survive. Fritz was trained at the Culinary Institute of America and is a very talented Chef. We have changed our menu to include items that he makes for us; soups, prepared meals, grain salads, fried chicken on Saturdays, udon noodle bowls on Thursdays in the cold weather…

Now we run a small bakery/gourmet food business that has many different facets; wholesale, retail, gift shop, some small catering. It is just the 2 of us. Different parts of the business are busier at different times of the year. And I am grateful for that because it seems to be working for us.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I grew up in NY in a family where my mom and one of my grandmother’s were both really good cooks. Food and where and what we were going to eat was always a topic of discussion. So when I decided after 10 years that the fashion industry was no longer where I wanted to spend my career, the idea of going to Culinary school was easily planted in my brain. It was 2002, and cooking and chefs were not as big of a part of our daily lives as they have become. I remember one of the first days of classes in our program, a Chef/teacher commented that they had never had so many women in a class.

Although I loved baking the most, I decided to do the full culinary program because it would offer me more job opportunities when I graduated. After completing the program, I worked in restaurants and catering companies in their pastry departments. I also did recipe testing for magazines and worked in a school kitchen when I realized that the dining/restaurant world was not for me. I finally ended up working as a private chef for several clients; one family who generously helped me by investing in Ali Katz Kitchen which I own today with my husband Fritz Beckmann.

Together we own a bakery and gourmet food retail shop/wholesale kitchen on the North Fork of Long Island. We provide the community with lots of baked goods, prepared soups and meals to eat and stock their fridges and freezers with each week. This became especially important in the last couple of years when so many people were working from home with kids getting schooled by computer. People were happy to have meals in the fridge that they didn’t have to cook! It really changed our business and what we were selling. Most of the food we sell is made from scratch in our kitchen and we use as many local ingredients as possible, especially in the Spring, Summer & Fall months.

In addition to what we do at our shop, we do a lot of work with local farmers. We make value added products from what they raise and grow that they can sell at their farm stands and local farmer’s markets. We also sell wholesale to some of the other local shops and restaurants in our area. And to top it off and to draw on my original merchandising roots, we also have a small gift shop in our store where are customers can pick up little things that make them happy.

It is just Fritz and I who work and run Ali Katz Kitchen, and I am proud of that. It’s a small business with a lot of balls in the air, but we have made it work. I won’t say it’s not challenging, and I am not sure anyone should be with their partner in the workplace and at home all of the time. But we do it on a daily basis with a lot of effort on both of our parts, and that is one of the reasons Ali Katz Kitchen has become successful.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I remember laughing with my nieces 5 years ago when I opened Ali Katz Kitchen that I couldn’t get past 200 followers. In my personal life I am not frequently active on social media, but I have grown to see what an important marketing tool it is for a small business. Showing your customers what you offer and making it fun and interesting are so important to our business. I run our social media and I really make an effort with it. I think the photos are really important in capturing your style and aesthetic. It’s important to remain true to your brand. It can be a lot of work, especially during the busy season when you feel like it is the last thing you have time for. But it definitely makes a difference. I can’t count the number of times a customer will stop in and say they saw something on Instagram and they came right over for it. Others come in and tell us immediately that they follow us on social media, some of them are from towns that are not nearby. It’s always amazing to me and I am proud that I have organically been growing our followers. I have not bought any and I don’t do much advertising. But I do take the time to post daily when we are open for retail. I also occasionally include personal pics of us at home, on vacation or of our cats…I’ve had advice not to do this from people in the marketing business, to keep it only about the business. But I find that my customers really like it and sometimes those are the photos that get the most likes. I think that people get to know us that way and get a glimpse into what we do with our time when we are not in the kitchen cooking and baking. And we are up to about 1800 followers, which I know isn’t huge, but to me it is pretty great for a small business.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I know these seem like a given, but I think there are several things that build your reputation. First, the quality of your product has got to be really good.. Other things help your business; like social media, marketing and location. But in the food industry, what you are selling has got to taste great. People will come to an out of the way spot if they know they are going to eat something out of the ordinary. We take our time and use the best ingredients we can because we want everything that we put out in our shop to be the best it can be. When we sell someone else’s food product, we also take the time to make sure we are procuring the best items that we can for our customers.

The second important thing, and I think may be as important as quality, is word of mouth. If it is not as important, the two are certainly linked. If what you’re making impresses someone enough to tell others, then that is something. You’ve made an impression that they want to share. It’s free marketing and it’s human nature to share what you like and don’t like with friends, relatives, people in your community. This works conversely as well…if someone doesn’t like your product they will share that with others too.
It always makes me feel good when someone comes in and tells me that another customer told them about us and they had to come in and try our food! Word of mouth has definitely been a great source of new customers for Ali Katz Kitchen and has helped to build our reputation on the North Fork and the East End of Long Island.

Lastly, but certainly not least, is hard work and caring about what you do. Customers can tell. They can see it in the quality of your product, the emails you send, the social media you put out there. People who work in the food industry generally tend to be hard workers. So are the farmers that we work with. And when you live in a small community everyone interacts in a way that I could never imagined when I lived in the city. People are respected for what they do, how they do it, and the effort they put into their work.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.alikatzkitchen.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alikatzkitchen
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alikatzkitchen
• Other: email: [email protected]

Image Credits
Special thanks to my friend Paula Didonato for the photo of me at one of our Black Cat Supper Club dinners!