Train!

Just like its
>offshoots,
Zingerman's
Deli in Ann
Arbor has been a
runaway success.

Above:
overa Hellund and Fran Scibelli
check Zingerman's menu.

Right:
Co-owner Ari Weinzweig lectures dur-
ing a ZingTrain seminar.

ALAN ABRAMS
Special to The Jewish News

A

ny way you slice it,
Zingerman's makes money.
The renowned deli-
catessen in Ann Arbor
racked up sales of $10.5 million last
year. Zingerman's has grown in 15
years to include five businesses
employing a total of 250 people.
Those are impressive stats
for a business built around a
one-location deli in a college
town.
Zingerman's is so success-
ful it's helping the competi-
tion. For $695 a person,
Zingerman's co-founders and
principal owners Paul
Saginaw and Ari Weinzweig
will share their secrets at a
two-day seminar. Held every
two months, the seminars,
called ZingTrain, add
$90,000 a year to the corpo-
rate coffers, as people come

from across the country and as far
away as Puerto Rico to listen and
learn.
"We're an integral part of the corn-
munity, but if we close tomorrow, life
will go on. We are selling nothing that
people need or can't get elsewhere
more conveniently," said Weinzweig.
"We have no parking, it is harder to
-find us, we charge more, and cus-
tomers have to wait longer," he said.

With prices somewhat higher than
the industry average, the deli is still a
success. Why? "We are here to sell the
Zingerman's experience," said
Weinzweig.
At a seminar last month, one "stu-
dent" had flown in from San Juan,
Puerto Rico, where he owns a market;
two had driven up from Charlotte,
N.C., where they own a bakery; two
others were from Dover, N.H., where
they operate a seventh-generation
business. Interestingly, none of the 15
attendees were Jewish, nor were any
operating a deli. Most were specialty
retailers, yet they had come to study
one of the nation's most successful
deli businesses, founded and still
operated by two Jewish entrepreneurs.
Margaret Bayless, coordinator of
the ZingTrain seminars and a manag-
ing partner in Zingerman's-Training,
Inc., said the seminar is the "best way
to give new people in the organiza-
tion an overview of who we are and
what we do."
The vision thing is very much an

10/10
1997

125