Hungry for Progress
Charlie Broder returned my call on a Thursday in mid-September. He prefaced our conversation by acknowledging that it felt like a weird time to talk about being a 2021 Minnesota Family Business Awards finalist. Seven key members of the kitchen staff at his family’s three south Minneapolis restaurants had resigned just since Labor Day, which left him scrambling. “It’s hard to keep a restaurant open if you can’t cook the food,” he said, staring at the holes on his weekend staffing schedule. “We’re on the brink of not being [able to staff shifts].”
Another year, another operational crisis for Broders’ Restaurants and so many small businesses like it. Leading into the pandemic, the company—which includes Broders’ Pasta Bar, Broders’ Cucina Italiana, and Terzo—had been averaging 5 to 10 percent growth per year. Since the start of Covid, “We’re trying desperately to keep the doors open—still,” says Broder, who runs the restaurants with his two brothers, Thomas and Danny Broder. The second generation, they co-own the company with their mother, Molly Broder, who started Broders’ Cucina in 1982 with her husband Tom Broder. (He died in 2008 after a decade of health challenges.) The brothers watched their mom run the business while raising a family, and without question, that grit and determination influenced their resolve to stay open during the pandemic—even when it meant serving takeout only and turning a parking lot into patio dining.
“No doubt, we function well under crisis,” Charlie Broder says. “We are always able to come together.”
Those bonds, and that ability to unite under pressure: It’s why Twin Cities Business takes great pride each year in presenting the Minnesota Family Business Awards. The difficult decisions that every organization has faced since the onset of Covid-19 feel even more profound when there’s a family legacy to uphold.
“We can’t go back to business as usual, or the same cycle will occur.”
—Charlie broder, co-owner, Broders’ Restaurants
For the Broders, “nearly reaching our breaking point last summer brought it all into perspective. Our identities are so wrapped up in the restaurants—the pandemic was a moment to detach and consider what has meaning and value to us, what we are committed to.”
They couldn’t have known it last year, when so many businesses were scrambling just to stay afloat, but that tenacity and willingness to embrace the unexpected better prepared many small businesses to address more challenges in 2021, from a rampant labor shortage to supply chain issues to employee mental health—on top of the acute need for progress in diversity, equity, and inclusion. And as much as Charlie Broder, with a new baby at home, was hoping 2021 and vaccines would finally mean a break from worrying about the day-to-day, he credits the pandemic with forcing his family to plan for a new era and to do business with more deliberation and purpose.
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As leaders in the food community, he says, he and his family see things now in a different light. “People don’t want to work in restaurants anymore. The situation we are in now is the result of our industry’s acceptance of low-paying wages,” he says. “We can’t go back to business as usual, or the same cycle will occur. We need an organization where people can create a career and feel fulfilled. That is the endeavor that our family is taking on. There’s no other option.”
The Broder family is working on restructuring wages and training for their more than 100 employees. They are investing in their spaces, reconfiguring the Cucina for a post-Covid world where takeout continues to be a business driver. (The Broder brothers are doing much of the remodel themselves, due to supply costs and labor challenges.) And the family is engaging in leadership training to plan for employee development and business growth.
It won’t be easy. Unlike last year, small businesses no longer have the safety net of Payroll Protection Program loans to get them through dark months. “The winter is going to be very painful,” Broder says. But he, like all of our Family Business Awards finalists and winners, chooses to focus on the prospects ahead. “Now is the time to scale up. It’s a beautiful opportunity.”
It’s an opportunity that requires a commitment from the communities the Broders and our other honorees serve, and it demonstrates once again: Supporting local businesses matters.
