Shortly after starting her studies at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1929, Simone de Beauvoir wrote in her journal that “Breakfasts at [Cafe] Les Deux Magots shall be my little Sunday ritual. I still have to try such things as their famous hot chocolate, croissants, and Croque Madame.” Artisan croissants, of the kind of quality de Beauvoir could have bought at cafe Les Deux Magot a century ago, have been on my mind a lot this past week as I’ve enjoyed ours from the Bakehouse. They recently became even better than ever since they’re now made with Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter.
People regularly wonder aloud to me what it is that has helped the ZCoB to become the globally recognized but still Ann Arbor-located, $80 million organization that it is. I do my best to explain to them that there is, in fact, no single thing that makes us who we are—a highly imperfect but deeply caring, dignity-centered, collection of something about 700 people and a dozen or so different businesses.
There are, though, behaviors and best practices we can identify as integral to our organizational essence. One of them is that we have, both intuitively at first and later intentionally, been working in sync with the Natural Laws of Business. As I explain in Secret #1 in Building a Great Business, all healthy organizations—families, first-grade classes, food businesses, bars that serve up apricot cocktails, and the philosophy departments that derive so much enjoyment from drinking them—live in harmony with those Natural Laws.
With that in mind, last week, we put two of the Natural Laws into play in tandem at the Bakehouse. Natural Law #7 says that “Successful businesses do all the little things everyone else knows that they should (or could) do but don’t.” And its neighbor in the code of Natural Laws of Business, #8, “To get to greatness you need to keep getting better all the time.” Both Natural Laws are embedded in our decision to, starting a week ago today, begin using Vermont Creamery’s compellingly delicious Cultured Butter in our croissants. (It’s also now in our scones, Patti Pockets, pie crusts, and palmiers, all with equally exciting and more flavorful results). I am exceedingly happy to report that, as we have been saying for over four decades, “You really can taste the difference!”
You might well have experienced the great flavors of the Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter over the course of the last couple of years at the Roadhouse. It showed up first on the Bakehouse bread service you can see on the menu. And man, between the amazing excellence of the Bakehouse’s Better Than San Francisco Sourdough and Roadhouse bread (historically known in New England as thirded bread, made with rye, wheat, corn, and a bit of molasses) and this remarkable butter, it was a HUGE hit!
In fact, the response to the butter from our flavor-loving guests was so enthusiastic that the Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter started to show up in other key menu items, too. The buttermilk biscuits, the Anson Mills organic grits, and mashed potatoes, on steaks, seafood, and pancakes, and most recently, in the really remarkable butterscotch pudding. All were already excellent items, and all have been made markedly better by our butter improvement. After all, better butter simply tastes better. Last night, a long-time regular, a woman in her 70s who grew up in Arkansas, tasted the Cultured Butter Buttermilk Biscuits for the first time—she just kept shaking her head and saying, “Wow! These taste like what my momma used to make when we were kids!”
As of last week, that same crazy good butter is in our croissants that we’ve been using ever more of, too. How good are they? Like the biscuits at the Roadhouse, they are already evoking some enthusiastic, head-shaking exclamations. Well, speaking personally, the first day they came out, I ate a whole croissant for the first time in perhaps 15 years. Roadhouse dining room manager and Staff Partner Zach Milner says, “This is the best croissant I’ve ever eaten!”
What makes the butter so good? Well, as with most everything we work with, world-class raw materials and proper process. The former means exceptionally good cream from farms that surround Vermont Creamery’s artisan plant in Websterville, Vermont. The process? It’s going back to the way great butter was made 150 years ago. Cream was allowed to rise naturally to the top of milk, and then allowed to “ripen,” aka, develop natural cultures much as yogurt or cheese would. The cultured cream is then churned into butter that is far more flavorful!
The impact on the croissants? Like with the biscuits and the butterscotch pudding at the Roadhouse, what was already widely loved rose to new heights of flavor. And aroma as well—when you break one open and stick your nose up close, you will almost immediately smell the difference. And then the flavor is more buttery, more complex, and more compelling—long after I finished eating mine, I could still taste how terrific it was!
All of the Bakehouse’s croissants are now made with Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter—that means Juliet Almond Croissants, Pain au Chocolat (with bean-to-bar chocolate from French Broad Chocolate in Asheville, and Chile Cheddar (with New Mexico fire-roasted green chiles and Vermont cheddar)! Swing by the Bakeshop, Deli, Coffee Company, or the Roadhouse to score some of these new, better-tasting than ever Cultured Butter Croissants! And, take care to have some napkins on hand. As food writer (and many-times-over presenter at BAKE!) Dorie Greenspan warns, “Like a baguette, a croissant is a messy affair.”
P.S. I did not make this up. The final item on author Daniela Giorgi’s 2017 list of 10 ways “to beat the forces of evil currently ruling the world” is: “Order another croissant!”
In 1982, Ari Weinzweig, along with his partner Paul Saginaw, founded Zingerman’s Delicatessen with a $20,000 bank loan, a Russian History degree from the University of Michigan, 4 years of experience washing dishes, cooking and managing in restaurant kitchens and chutzpah from his hometown of Chicago. They opened the doors with 2 employees and a small selection of specialty foods and exceptional sandwiches.
Today, Zingerman’s Delicatessen is a nationally renowned food icon and the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses has grown to 10 businesses with over 750 employees and over $55 million in annual revenue. Aside from the Delicatessen, these businesses include Zingerman’s Bakehouse, Coffee Company, Creamery, Roadhouse, Mail Order, ZingTrain, Candy Manufactory, Cornman Farms and a Korean restaurant that is scheduled to open in 2016. No two businesses in the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses are alike but they all share the same Vision and Guiding Principles and deliver “The Zingerman’s Experience” with passion and commitment.
Besides being the Co-Founding Partner and being actively engaged in some aspect of the day-to-day operations and governance of nearly every business in the Zingerman’s Community, Ari Weinzweig is also a prolific writer. His most recent publications are the first 4 of his 6 book series Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading Series: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business (Part 1), Being a Better Leader (Part 2), Managing Ourselves (Part 3) and the newly-released Part 4, The Power of Beliefs in Business. Earlier books include the Zingerman’s Guides to Giving Great Service, Better Bacon, Good Eating, Good Olive Oil, Good Vinegar and Good Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Ari regularly travels across the country (and world) on behalf of ZingTrain, teaching organizations and businesses about Zingerman’s approach to business. He is a sought-after Keynote speaker, having delivered keynotes for Inc. 500, Microsoft Expo Spring Conference, Great Game of Business Gathering of Games, Positive Business Conference at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, American Society for Quality (ASQ), and the American Cheese Society. Most recently, Ari and Paul Saginaw were invited to address an audience of 50,000 for the University of Michigan 2015 Spring Commencement.
One of Zingerman’s Guiding Principles is being an active part of the community and in 1988, Zingerman’s was instrumental in the founding of Food Gatherers, a food rescue program that delivers over 5 million pounds of food each year to the hungry residents of Washtenaw county. Every year Zingerman’s donates 10% of its previous years profits to local community organizations and non-profits. Ari has served on the board of The Ark, the longest continuously operating folk music venue in America.
Over the decades, the Zingerman’s founding partners have consistently been the recipients of public recognition from a variety of diverse organizations. In April 1995, Ari and Paul were awarded the Jewish Federation of Washtenaw County’s first Humanitarian Award. In 2006, Ari was recognized as one of the “Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America” by the James Beard Foundation. In 2007, Ari and Paul were presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award from Bon Appetit magazine for their work in the food industry. Ari was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Cheese Society in 2014. And Ari’s book, Building a Great Business was on Inc. magazine’s list of Best Books for Business Leaders.
Notwithstanding the awards, being engaged on a daily basis in the work of 10 businesses and 21 partners, writing books on business and in-depth articles on food for the Zingerman’s newsletter, Ari finds time to be a voracious reader. He acquires and reads more books than he can find room for. Ari might soon find himself the owner of the largest collection of Anarchist books in Ann Arbor outside the Labadie collection at the University of Michigan library!
