According to the owner, business is up fourfold at the well-known deli and bakery his father, Paul, and uncle, Gus, opened in 1958 on Sumner Avenue in Springfield.
SPRINGFIELD – It’s July, but Gordon R. Weissman, owner of Gus & Paul’s, is baking every night like every next day is a bustling Christmas Eve.
Business is up fourfold at the well-known deli and bakery his father, Paul, and uncle, Gus, opened in 1958 on Sumner Avenue in Springfield. That’s a pretty big switch from a week ago. Business had been falling for some time. Weissman was on the verge of closing up and letting the ovens go cold.
But instead he spoke up about the competition he faces from big-box retailers he says make an inferior product. He wrote letters and gave interviews, saying consumers can chose to support Gus & Paul’s or they can continue to take their business elsewhere and let it fade.
An interview with Weissman and a copy of his letter ran in The Republican’s Business Monday section on July 23. It also ran on the paper’s website partner, MassLive.com
Weissman said the response was swift and largely positive. “This has been one of the most incredible weeks of my life,” he said. “We’ve been booking lots of catering jobs. Wholesale accounts have been calling us.”
He’s especially proud of the way his staff is taking criticism of customer service at the store seriously.
“There is not one detail that they are not taking care of,” he said. “It is impressive.”
He hopes it is impressive enough to make regular customers out of the people drawn by his letter and the newspaper piece.
He’s been contacted by a website developer who has volunteered to help him move into e-commerce and shipping Gus & Paul’s baked goods to customers all over the country.
“We do a little bit of that now,” he said. “But I’m hearing from a lot of people.”
Moving, as has been suggested, is out of the question, Weissman said. His bakery equipment is simply too large and money is too tight. But he is looking at possibly changing the layout of the store.