Abstract
Burt Saltzman, owner of Dave's Supermarket, discusses the evolution of his family business in the Cleveland area and how demographic, economic, and environmental changes have impacted his industry. Burt explains his family history, memories of living and operating in Cleveland, business philosophy, interesting narratives, and predictions for the future of the grocery industry. Despite the dynamic changes throughout Cleveland's history, Dave's has endured where many have failed.
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Interviewee
Saltzman, Burt (interviewee)
Interviewer
King, Kris (interviewer); Overman, Mary-Kay (interviewer)
Project
St. Clair - Superior Neighborhood
Date
7-12-2006
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
77 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Burt Saltzman Interview, 12 July 2006" (2006). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 903002.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/275
Transcript
Kris King [00:00:00] We're all set. All right, I'm Chris King, and I'm working with Mary-Kay Overman, Cleveland State University, on this oral history project. And today's date is July 12. That's right. All right, Mister Saltzman, thank you very much for coming in today to talk with us. And thank you for all the food, too. That was very kind. It must be because you have Dave's Supermarket. And as you started to tell us before, you have a picture of the first store in 1929. Talk about that.
Burt Saltzman [00:00:38] Actually, our grandpa had a small fruit and vegetable market, actually, right in the same location where our number one store is on Payne Avenue. And I think the date is kind of unclear. It's somewhere in the 1929 30, 31. Right around that era. He opened up. He started out as a huckster. A huckster. Somebody that went at a truck. And he went from place to place, selling his produce, driving up and down the streets. And then he opened up a small strictly, probably about half the size of this room, if I have to guess. And he opened up a small fruit and vegetable market at East 33rd and Payne Avenue. My father, my grandmother, and my grandfather were separated. So my father was with my grandmother for a while. And then he came here to Cleveland from Toledo. And he joined my grandfather, and they started. He joined them in the business. I believe it had to be sometime in the early 1930s, because then he got married, and I was born in 1937. I'm just trying to put these dates together. I assume it was somewhere in the early 1930s that he joined my grandfather and started working with him.
Kris King [00:02:14] Interesting, because I want to continue on... on your early childhood growing up. So your family then came from Toledo, but you were born here in Cleveland.
Burt Saltzman [00:02:25] I was born here in Cleveland, yes.
Kris King [00:02:26] Could you tell me something about your mom, where you lived?
Burt Saltzman [00:02:31] And we grew up in the. We grew up in the. My mom and dad, actually both came over from Poland. They were both Polish immigrants. They didn't know each other, of course, then. And when my mom came to. When my dad came to, my mother came here with her family. My uncle brought my mother over. She had four sisters and four brothers, and they all came over together. And most of them ended up in the fur business. My uncle had a fur shop. My father. My mother was working for my uncle for a while. And then she was introduced to my father by somebody. And that was probably 19, 34, 35, something like that. And that's when they got married. And I was the first child. I was born in 1937.
Kris King [00:03:40] Where were you living then?
Burt Saltzman [00:03:41] Well, we were living in the city. We were living on. Actually, we started out living on Lynn Drive and we moved to Eddy Road. Lynn Drive is right off of 105th in that area. Around 105th and Superior around there. And then we moved over to Eddy Road, which is off of St. Clair. Superior, right across from breath. And I went to Hazel del Elementary School, which is no longer there. I think the building is there, but it's no longer a school. And I went to Patrick Henry Junior High School. My folks moved when I was in the 8th grade. They moved to university Heights. Then I went to a Roxboro Junior High School and then to Cleveland Heights High School, and then to Ohio State University, where I graduated with an accounting degree. Actually, I did pretty well in accounting. I was in Beta Alpha Psi. But I really somehow the business was in my blood. I grew up working in my dad's little store. I.
Kris King [00:05:03] Is that still the same location on East 40th? And Payne?
Burt Saltzman [00:05:06] East 30th and Payne, yeah, East 30th, right. And I grew up working in the store. And when I graduated, I think my folks, at least my mother wanted me. Go on. She knew how hard dad worked and she wanted me to go into something maybe a little easier. I just. I mean, truth. I went to one interview and they were going to hire me, but I said, you know, why waste my time? I love the business. I mean, and I really want to grow the business. And I came to work for dad right away. And at that time, because of that.
Kris King [00:05:42] Makes you love the business.
Burt Saltzman [00:05:43] I know, I think I kind of like people. I mean, I just can't envision being an accountant, you know, working in an office. I mean, today I own nine stores, but I still love to be with the people I'm not. I don't sit in my office and I hire people that do that. I don't, you know, I enjoy the people, I enjoy the customers. I enjoy the employees most of the time. Not all the time, but I mean, that is. I mean, people kind of make fun of me. They say, why are you up front? You know, sometimes packing bags or, why are you up front? You know, something spills, why are you picking it up? You know, you should not be doing this. But, you know, we meant, why shouldn't I be doing it? I mean, that's my life. That's what I enjoy. Once in a while, I'll carry something out to somebody's car and the lady will remark, do you know who he is? He owns all these stores, and look at him, you know, he's carrying this stuff. But so what? I mean, you know, does that make me bad? I mean, I think that's why, you know, that's what I enjoy.
Kris King [00:06:52] And actually, if you look at it from another angle, you're keeping your eye on the whole store at this particular time. And so, you know, know what's going on.
Burt Saltzman [00:07:01] Rather than sitting in that office, right. There's a lot of people that like to sit in offices and like to play with numbers and figure out what's going wrong. But I think I could figure out better being there, right out with the people and handle complaints. I mean, I don't think there's ever been a complaint where I couldn't handle it and make the lady walk out feeling good about herself and not being angry. I mean, you know, there's ways of handling complaints and there's ways of just brushing them off, but, you know, like, once in a while, a customer will say, you know, she cheated me. And, you know, pointing to a cashier, the cashier made a mistake. Of course, you know, I would just say, whoa, whoa, what happened? You know, she'll tell me. I said, well, let's start all over again. Let's first start by saying she made a mistake. And she said, okay, she made a mistake. And then I explained to her that we have computers and it wasn't really her fault. Somebody didn't put the right price in the computer, and I apologize, and mistakes are made. And when I'm done with her, basically, she feels, I think when you spend time with somebody and explain to them everything, and they realize that mistakes can be made occasionally, and I think they walk out with feelings or same thing on a phone call. We have eight other stores, and, you know, people call me and complain about this store and that store not very often, but when they do, I take the time and try to, you know, make them feel. I mean, it might even cost me sending them a $25 gift certificate. But so what? I mean, when, you know, when I'm done with them, I don't think we lost a customer. I think that they'll stay with us, and I can handle them.
Kris King [00:08:52] Going back to your early, you know, early one. Before you started working at the stores, as far as taking over, growing up, you probably had a lot of friends in the neighborhood.
Burt Saltzman [00:09:07] Yes, especially on Eddy Road. We had a lot of. I had a lot of friends. Truthfully, I worked. I mean, a lot of them played baseball. They were in different leagues and that. But I always worked. I mean, I enjoyed it. I mean, I got up in the morning many times with dad and went to work. And on my days off in summertime, I would actually. I first started out with a little wagon. In those days, there were no supermarkets. There were just little corner stores, and the people would do their shopping, and they would live on East 33rd. East 34th. A lot of them didn't have cards. You know, I'd put the four or five bags on a wagon or boxes and just wheel it home for them, and dad would pay me $0.15 an order for every order that I, you know, that I took, that I took home. And, you know, at the end of the day, maybe I paid $3 or something, you know, and it was. That was my pay then. And, I mean, I could still remember doing it. I remember some of the ladies that I delivered to. I mean, in fact, it's kind of funny. About a year or so ago, I was reading the obituaries, and there was this lady that lived on East 34th street, and I still. When I read her obituary, I still remember the address where, of course, she didn't live there anymore. I still remember the address, which was 1522 East 34th street. I remember, you know, delivering there, and, you know, certain things you just don't. It sticks in your mind. And when I went to the wake, the daughters were all grown and everything, and I explained to them who I was. They remembered. I mean, it's just. It's kind of funny.
Kris King [00:10:56] Did you enjoy going to college?
Burt Saltzman [00:10:58] Yes, I did. Of course, I went to Ohio State. Everybody enjoys going to Ohio State. I did. Well, I was in a fraternity. I went to the Rose Bowl one year. While they were there. I studied hard. I enjoyed accounting. It came rather easy. I really didn't have to kill myself. I thought numbers always came easy to me. It was fun days, actually. I had a checking account that dad put money in for me, so if I want to go out and buy something, there was always.
Kris King [00:11:47] You were living well at Ohio State, right?
Burt Saltzman [00:11:50] And, I mean, not like a rich man, but I never had a worry. I think when my checking account got lower, I think the bank would call my dad. He would have to put some more money into that. That was my. They were really fun days. And actually going back, I almost forgot about my wife. We started dating. I was a senior in high school, and she was three years younger than me, and she was only in the 9th grade, and we were dating all through high school. And then I went away to college, and we continued dating. And then when she started Ohio State, unfortunately, we were only there for three. She was only there for three months, and we were going back to Columbus, and we were in a very, very bad car accident. We got hit head on and by a couple older ladies. It was a very bad night, and they lost control of the car, and we got hit head on. And fortunately, you know, I ended up with a broken nose. And my wife, Judy, ended up with a concussion, but we all. The one fell in the backseat, had a broken foot, but we all lived. And Judy, after that, Judy never went back to school. She was laid up for quite a while with a concussion, and I felt sorry for her, and I married her. So I'm sure you loved her. No, I'm only kidding. No, you know, I mean. But we did. Right after I graduated, right after I graduated that year, I was an ROTC. I went into service. And right before I went into service, we got married, and Judy came along with me. I was only in, of course, for six months. We were down at Fort Lee, Virginia. I was in the quartermaster corps. And actually, when we went down there, she was already, I think, two months after we got married, she became pregnant. And of course, her mother didn't want her to have the baby on the army base, God forbid. So she came back to Cleveland and had the baby. And of course, I came back.
Kris King [00:14:18] And I would like to touch upon this. You mentioned that your parents were both from Poland.
Burt Saltzman [00:14:27] Yes.
Kris King [00:14:28] When you were growing up, did you have any big connection with the Polish community here in Cleveland?
Burt Saltzman [00:14:35] Not really. I mean, they were from Poland, but they weren't really Polish Polish. We're Jewish. We're. We're Jewish. But a lot of Jewish people came over from Poland, but we weren't Polish. Polish. In other words, their origin is from Poland. But my mother's father was a very orthodox scribe. He worked in a temple. He was very, very, very intelligent. He wrote the Torah, which is our religious. He was very, very, very intelligent. In fact, both of my sisters are very, very good artists, and that's probably where they got their skills from, was from my grandfather, because he was very. In fact, some of the things that he wrote and some of the. Their treasures, our family fought over them. My uncle, actually, my cousin, ended up with most of them, the originals, and he gave us all copies. But he was a very, very, very scholarly. Very, very scholarly man, and he raised the kids.
Kris King [00:16:01] So you really didn't have any connection that big a thing with the Polish.
Burt Saltzman [00:16:06] No community here in. No. No.
Kris King [00:16:09] Okay. I just was wondering, what about this fur business that your relatives were in? Did that succeed?
Burt Saltzman [00:16:15] Oh, yeah, yeah. Actually, yeah, that for a lot of years, they were called up. They were called Andre Schwartz and Singer. My uncle was Harry Singer. They were very well to do it in those days. They had a big fur shop on, I think it was 18th in Euclid. Then the days when everybody went downtown, actually, the whole family worked for them. I mean, all my uncles became furriers. My mother worked in the fur shop for a while in the office, and they had a lot of people working. It was a very, very big. And they did very. I know they did very, very well. Then later on, they ended up selling the business or something their sons went into. Actually, they owned some discount stores called Mister Wig's Discount, which was. They had, like, eight or nine stores in those days. So he left the fur business and went into the discount business the days before Super Kmart and all the rest. There were really many big.
Kris King [00:17:30] Well, I'd like to talk about your business, the Sam's Market days. Sam's days. Sorry.
Burt Saltzman [00:17:40] That's okay.
Kris King [00:17:42] Anyway, we had the opportunity to visit one of your markets in Ohio City was last summer, and it was very, very nice. And walking through the market, everybody was extremely pleasant, and the customers were well taken care of. Is this a philosophy that you have about the customer comes first and make sure that they're well taken care of?
Burt Saltzman [00:18:07] Better be well. That's kind of like my. You know. I mean, I. Unfortunately, it's not as good as it used to be. I mean, I think when two people used to stand in line and there were some registers that weren't open, I would get nervous. I would say, open up another register. But today, I think in today's society, my wife says, don't worry about it. People go into stores, they don't mind staying in line for a few minutes. But it makes me nervous. I think if all you checkouts are going and people stand in line, then they'll wait, you know, if, you know, if they're staying in line and you have empty checkouts, if there's only two or three, I guess I shouldn't get upset, but I always open up another register. I just. You know, that's. I mean, that's kind of been my theory. And, you know, I mean, unfortunately, you know, today, the food business is not a lifetime career for most people, because, you know, the salary. The salary basis isn't wonderful. I mean, you know, we wish we could pay more, but, you know, we're up against competition that doesn't pay more. The non union stores and, you know, so, you know, we have to pay their benefits. We're strictly union stores. We pay all their benefits. But, you know, the base pay itself is not wonderful. So it really is a, I think it's like a stepping stone for, you know, for most people. I think if you become a department head or store manager, of course you're going to probably make it a career. But in this business today, I think that it's kind of like a, people start working in high school or shortly after work for a few years and probably go on and try to find maybe a better paying job. But in the past, I mean, I have people who have been with me for 25 years, for 30 years, I mean, a lot of them now, but I don't think the future is going to be that way strictly because, you know, it's not a great, you know, the cost of living has gone up and unfortunately, you know, the, you know, the wages have not gone up in proportionate to the, you know, to what somebody really needs to support a family and that, but we're union stores. We pay what the union says and, but we do, you know, they are covered by their medical costs, their, their pension. That's all taken care of.
Kris King [00:20:52] That isn't your part time employees, though.
Burt Saltzman [00:20:55] No, that's not my part time. Those are full time. The part time people do have, but the part time people are only covered for themselves, not for their family. So in other words, if you go to work and you have a family, unfortunately, the part time people only covered their hospital bills and medical bills are only for themselves, not for their.
Kris King [00:21:17] If I was a part time worker at your store and I had needed some hospitalization, that would be covered under your policy.
Burt Saltzman [00:21:24] Right. But not your family. But not your, not your, not your family. So you take a man that is the breadwinner of a family and he's working and he has kids and that it's really, unless he gets full time hours and we try to give the better people that have families full time hours strictly to keep them.
Kris King [00:21:54] Do you hire a lot of high school students?
Burt Saltzman [00:21:58] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a big part of the people in our store are hiring.
Kris King [00:22:03] Yeah. Those aren't covered by any kind of medical.
Burt Saltzman [00:22:06] No, not until they actually finish, you know, finish high school and then they go into a different category. In fact, the new contract was just changed. I'm not even quite familiar with it, but it's not, it's not wonderful, you know what I mean? But it.
Kris King [00:22:22] Have you had success with your high school students?
Burt Saltzman [00:22:26] Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of the high school students have stayed with us. But, you know, there are other professions. You know, if you go out into the trades at all or anything like that, you know, they're better paying. You know, they're better paying jobs, you know, I mean, our, like, our. The highest rate a cashier can go to under the new contract today is probably, like $12 an hour. The old contract, they could be making 14.75, I believe, but under the new contract now, it's only $12 an hour after three years or four years or something like that, to get up to that. And that's not, you know, so my grandkids babysit, and they make $10 an hour babysitting, which, when I heard that, I said, what? You know, I used to pay these kids $2 an hour, and if I was a real sport, I'd give them a 50 cent tip at the end. Now they're paying kids $10 an hour to babysit. I mean, it's just. It's.
Kris King [00:23:31] But the wage is only that you have to pay by the government is what, 5.75?
Burt Saltzman [00:23:38] Yeah, but I think that's gonna be changed, I'm sure. I mean, I. That's kind of. And we don't have even the young kids that we bring in. We don't start them at 5.70. That's, you know. Yeah, we usually charge them, you know, start them at 6.50 an hour. You know, I mean, that's. And that's not wonderful, but, you know, 5.75 is.
Mary-Kay Overman [00:24:00] I'm going to intervene. I just have a quick question. Not a quick question. The progression. Like, for instance, your name is Bert. Obviously, your father's last name was Salzman, and your grandfather also, who is Dave? And then how did you go from that East 40th store to the 9th that you currently have?
Burt Saltzman [00:24:19] Well, my grandfather was Alex, my father was Dave. And then after my father joined and we expanded the store, our original store was called. Our original old store was called up to date fruit and vegetable market. That was our first store. And then with dad, we modeled it, and we put in a few groceries. I remember at the time, we put in a cooler in the back room where we would stick a little milk in it, but we had to go out and get it for the customer because it wasn't on the floor. And then Dave changed it, and then we started getting some groceries. I could still remember that's when my father changed it to Dave supermarket. And when I joined dad, when I graduated college, we just had the one store on Payne Avenue, 33rd and Payne. And at the time, A & P went out of business in Cleveland. They sold their stores, and we picked up a store on 74th and Harvard, which was our number two store. There was an A & P store. And we remember at the time, my father was kind of getting ready to retire, and then he said, what do you need another store for? You can make a nice living out of one store. What do you need another headache for? I guess if there's ever a life after death and I went into my father, he'll really kill me because, you know, now I have nine stories, and he's probably right, you know, you get a lot of, you know, if I would have kept the one story, I'd probably be, you know, just this one store here on Payne Avenue. I'd probably, you know, be home earlier, be home earlier, be, you know, probably financially better off. But, you know, you do. You do what you. What's the word? You do what you think is right. And, you know.
Kris King [00:26:34] What about what time, like, the A & P, was that, like late sixties, early seventies?
Burt Saltzman [00:26:39] Oh, that was probably. Probably close to 30 years ago, 28 years ago, something like that, yeah. And then after that, other stores became available. Our third store was in Euclid at on Shore Center drive in Euclid, which did very well for a lot of years. And actually we still do fairly well, but they opened a brand new top store right across the street from us, but they're not going to be there much longer. So we kind of eliminated that. You know, we're hoping that maybe we can get that store, you know, and close up our store on the other side of the street, which I think the people in Euclid really, one of the ladies from the council, from the Euclid city council that works for the Salvation army, she was in the store. Serious, she said, I sent her on an official. An official, official business. You get that store across the street and, you know, you know, take over when Tops goes out. So, I don't know, we'll see what happens. I mean, there's a lot of. We're working on it and see what happens. And then the other stories just basically came along. 152nd in Lakeshore Boulevard was. I'm trying to think what that was. That might have been. That was a Fisher Fazio. I think that store closed up, and we took that store, and then the Denison and Ridge store was an old Zaire's, probably remember Zaire's. It's a big store. And I was able to buy the property there, which was good that I bought the property, and we put a big store there. That store today is predominantly probably 80% Hispanic. And the Hispanic community is very, very fast growing community. We do very. It's a great store. We do very cater, you know, all the Spanish Hispanic items. There's specialty vegetables and the beans and the codfish, and we're pretty good at that. And we know what they buy, and that's a great store. And then recently, of course, we, you know, Ohio City was one of our last stores. They were after us for like, three or four years. You know, the development director kept calling me, come on, you know, we need a store. We need a store. You know, West 25th and wherever it is. I mean, at the time, it was all winos hanging around there, and it was a real dilapidated neighborhood. I kept saying, no, let's see, you know, let's see, let's see. And he came and he showed me a location. I said, yeah, we'll see, we'll see. And then one Saturday morning, someone said, mayor White wants to talk to you on the phone. I said, I thought someone was kidding me. You know, what is. Mayor White wants to talk to me. It was him. And he said, look, he said, you come down to my office next week, and we're going to talk. You're going to go into West 25th street and go down there. I said, well, okay, sir. You know, I don't know what to say talking to the mayor. Okay, sir. You know, we went down there and we were able to work out a nice deal, and that was one of our better. Thank you, Mayor White. That's one thing he did not. He said, good. No. And, you know, today that area is just, you know, it's a super area. They build those condos right outside our front door that are selling for that. Sold like that for $400,000 a pop, right on west. The only mistake I made when we went there, I should have bought a bunch of property around there. No, I mean, just because everybody wants to build condos down there. I mean, the value of the land has increased greatly down there, and the store could be a little bit bigger. It's a small stowage there. Also. We help quite a bit of Hispanic trade, and that's like the League of Nations down there. You know, you have the hoity toity professionals that, you know, that live in those expensive condos. You have the Hispanic people. You got your everyday people. It's a real mixture of, you got the seniors that live over there. So, you know, you really have a. It's really kind of difficult to cater to, you know, to everybody in that size store. But we try, and I think. I think even the well to do people that live down there, they can probably afford to live somewhere else. But I think they accept, you know, shopping with everybody else, because if they didn't like the area, they wouldn't be living down there. And, you know, they don't mind standing in line and somebody that's on welfare and they're paying for it in food stamps. And, you know, I think they enjoy the diversity of the area.
Kris King [00:32:07] It's exciting down there. It's very revitalized.
Burt Saltzman [00:32:09] Right? Yeah. Right.
Kris King [00:32:11] Is that unique to your stores?
Kris King [00:32:13] Like, I mean, this particular neighborhood right now, the Easter ether. I know. You know, you see building. You see the art community, St. Joseph, you know.
Burt Saltzman [00:32:21] Right.
Kris King [00:32:22] The different condos around here possibly happening?
Burt Saltzman [00:32:25] Well, they're trying. Of course, our councilmen, Joe Sifferman, has been trying to. They're trying to. We buy, like, some of the arts on around 40th street there. And, you know, some art studios are opening up over there, and there are some condos. Of course, they're talking about building one on 12th in St. Clair, some high rise, I guess, some new, you know, new development down there. And that's all exciting. I mean, I think we're in a good, you know, we're in a good area. The future, you know, probably has to get better. I mean, you know, it hasn't. I mean, while we. We have done very well on 33rd and Payne, strictly because all our competition has closed. We had a store on 38th in Payne that closed. We had a. A Pick-N-Pay pay here on St. Clair, on 60th in St. Clair. They're closed. There's really nobody. We're it. I mean, there's a Save-A-Lot, a small Save-A-Lot, I guess.
Kris King [00:33:29] So you really have seen a great transformation in the neighborhoods with.
Burt Saltzman [00:33:37] Yeah, with everything. I mean, there's just, you know, years ago, I think, people came over to work in the factories. That's when I first started out in the business. That's when everybody was working for Ford and Chevrolet, and the business was booming. The Hispanic people came up from Puerto Rico and got jobs in the factories, and they replaced a lot of the foreign element that were there. The german people were the original ones there that came over. You know, they all moved out to Parma. Then Hispanic people moved in. Now a lot of the Hispanic people moved to the west side. Now you have the Asian community, and there, we're right in the middle of Chinatown over there. So now, you know, I guess, kind of like we've seen it all, I guess. You know, went from one, one ethnic group to the other. But I think as far as being Chinatown now, it seems like the value of a lot of things have gone up because I know the homes around there, the people that own homes, they're able to sell their homes pretty fast because the Chinese people are looking for places to live that, and.
Kris King [00:35:03] You find the neighborhood is really being kept up better now as the years go on in comparison to when you started, or has it changed kind of reversed?
Burt Saltzman [00:35:14] I think it depends on the people. I mean, there are nice areas. I don't think anybody kept the homes as nice as the old German people. They came over and, in fact, there was a lady that lived behind my store. You could eat. I mean, she was out there every morning hosing down her sidewalk. I mean, you could eat off of. Literally eat off of her sidewalk. I mean. Cause she, you know, there was that, you know, walking her home. Everything was spotless. I mean, you know, today, I don't think you have many people like that. But, you know, I think with the revitalization and the nice things that are happening in the neighborhoods, that somehow entices people to maybe take better care of their front lawns, their property, paint their house. And actually, as we invested money on Payne Avenue, we noticed that a lot of the neighborhoods are. The neighbors are fixing up their home, you know, fixing up their lawn. And, I mean, I think, you know what? Things spread off one another, and if you have something good happening, I think, you know, people, a lot of people want to join and to make things happen.
Kris King [00:36:37] Your family, you have sons and daughters, or are they in the business with you?
Burt Saltzman [00:36:44] I have two sons. We're all buckeyes, by the way. We all graduated from Ohio State. Yeah, my two sons. My oldest son joined me right after he graduated from Ohio State. My youngest son decided to. He was in Chicago for three years. He had a seat on the Chicago board of trade, and the girl that he was dating was from Cleveland. And at the time, we were expanding our business, and I called Steve and I said, Steve, it's really not fair to your brother. You're down there and we're buying stores. We could use you here. You can't come back 15 years from now and say, well, I want 50% of this business. It's not fair to your brother. And I think his wife wanted to come back to Cleveland, too, even though he had a great life in Chicago. He went rollerblading. Never after. He keeps reminding me about that. You know, when you have a seat in the Chicago board of Trade you've done at 04:00 in the afternoon. And you have the rest of the day off. You don't work Saturdays, you don't work Sundays. Well, that's really not like our business today. So he kind of misses it. But they're both good asses. My oldest son kind of is in the stores all the time. He goes from store to store. My youngest son is more of an office person. He takes care of anything that has to do with the. My oldest son likes to build stores and put in real nice things. And my youngest son tells him, wait a minute, Danny, let's think this over a little bit. So they kind of have a good. What's the word? A good balance. Usually my oldest son wins because we keep building new stores and making them nice. But so far we're able to handle it. And I also have two daughters, which I don't want to forget. They're both in Cleveland. Also. They married doctors, which every mother loves. One is an OB-GYN doctor, and the other one is an orthopedic surgeon. They both do very nice, very nice. Very nice boys. And I would say, because they make a lot of money, which they make a nice living, but they're just nice. You want nicer grandsons and her son in laws. And I have twelve grandchildren. They're all in town. They're. All three of my kids live in Seoul. And the other one lives in Pepper Pike. And they're fun. I don't have to jump on a plane
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