Have you ever wondered how Sendik’s Food Market got its name?
Owner Ted Balistreri sits down with WTMJ’s Libby Collins this week on WTMJ Conversations.
Listen in the player above.
A portion of the conversation was transcribed below, courtesy of eCourt Reporters, Inc.
LIBBY COLLINS: How did Sendik’s get its name?
TED BALISTRERI: Well, when my grandfather and his brothers — excuse me, my great-grandfather came to Milwaukee and were settling in the Third Ward, they were establishing their household and they needed a stove, so they went to a store and were buying a — they found a stove that they liked, and they said to the salesclerk, “Send it to me.” Well, the salesclerk misunderstood what they were saying and thought that they were saying that their name was Sendik. So, the delivery people that were delivering the stove to the Third Ward, where all the Italian immigrants lived, were looking for the Sendik family to deliver the stove to. Well, the neighbors in this tight-knit community thought that that was pretty funny. And they knew what was going on, and so they started referring to them as the Sendik family. And that’s — and then eventually when they had their first store, they decided to call it Sendik’s.
LIBBY COLLINS: How did your family make it through the depression?
TED BALISTRERI: Depression, right. You know, I’ve often thought about that, and I think probably one thing that I know about my grandfather and his brothers is they were very hard workers. They were very — they had a — not unlike a lot of immigrants — a huge desire to be successful and make a better life for themselves and their families. So, for them, work was not really an issue, and my guess is that they just worked really, really hard at their business.
LIBBY COLLINS: Well, when did the Sendik’s family decide to expand into multiple stores? As you said, you started with that first small produce market, it kind of expanded into a grocery store, but then it started to become bigger and bigger.
TED BALISTRERI: First of all, Grandfather — my grandfather and his brothers eventually had three stores. So, in 1926, they had their store in Shorewood, a few years later they opened another store on Downer Avenue, and then later in the 1940s, late 1940s, they had a third store in Whitefish Bay on Silver Spring Drive. And at some time in there, they decided that they wanted to own and operate the stores separately. So, each family took a store and was owning and operating it separately. They were still friendly and they almost — had breakfast almost every morning together back then in the Third Ward at the produce market on Commission Row. They’d meet, they’d buy the produce for the day, and maybe they’d have breakfast together. So, anyway, they separated the stores and then each one operated a different store. My grandfather ended up with the Whitefish Bay store.
And then it was in the 1970s, mid 1970s, that the store started to become what you would know — what you would recognize as the modern supermarkets. So, they expanded into — in Whitefish Bay, and I can still remember, maybe some of your listeners might remember that in Whitefish Bay there was the produce market, which was the Sendik’s store that the family owned, and right next to it was an old A&P grocery store. And the A&P was a tenant of my grandfather and his brothers. Well, at some point in time, A&P, which was — eventually went away and it became — and that store became vacant, this was in the 1970s, my father and his brother broke down the wall that separated the two stores, and that was their entree into what you would see as a full — what you would recognize as a full-line grocery store today.
LIBBY COLLINS: As you said, that was something you kind of remember, you were just a little guy at the time.
TED BALISTRERI: Sure, right.
LIBBY COLLINS: What do you remember other than that as far as the family business? I mean, was being around a grocery store just sort of natural for you?
TED BALISTRERI: Yeah. Well, I think, a couple things. First of all, I think a lot of your listeners may recognize, when you come from an immigrant family and there’s a business involved, the business dominates your conversation at family dinners and at gatherings, etcetera. It’s really a part of your life. And so, growing up, it wasn’t — I mean, that was — it was frequently the conversation that we had at the dinner table, you know, how the business was going, what was going on, what customers came in. You know, it was a big part of our lives.