How a small Boston business beat some very stiff odds
By Steve Sheinkopf, Yale Appliance
(Reposted with permission of Yale Appliance.)
We turned 100 this year, a milestone most family businesses never reach. When you read the history of the Great Depression (1929–1941), the Great Recession (2007-2009) and other past economic downturns, you wonder how we are still around.
This story is not about a founder or a family. Our story is about bad timing, hard work, some incredibly good people and three generations of customers in an ever-changing city. Here is how it all happened:
The Yale Story: 1923
The Roaring Twenties was a great time to start a business and three guys named Charlie started ours: Charlie Jacobs, Charlie Hurley and Charlie Weinreb. Why, you might ask, did they name it Yale? Prestigious educational institutions became common names for credibility … or maybe they thought it was funny.
I don’t know when my grandfather, Sam Sheinkopf, started at Yale, I only know he was motivated to work. He arrived in the U.S. around this time from Poland and his motivation was to bring his sister and six brothers to this country. The plan was good until…
1928
The Great Depression ended the “roar” of the Roaring Twenties. The unemployment rate of 33% is still a record today.
1932
My grandfather bought Yale with his life savings of $3,500. In today’s currency, that’s $76,800. It’s a good deal, unless you commit your life savings in the middle of such economic peril. He also didn’t know the recession would last another nine years.
1958
In the late 1950s, Yale was on Portland Street along with every other electrical distributor in Boston. Unfortunately, they were all evicted by eminent domain to make way for the new City Hall. So Yale moved to 98 Canal St., a few blocks from the Boston Garden. I can only describe Canal Street as the place where businesses go to die. Nothing survives there. Neither bars, banks, fast food, casual dining nor breweries made it on Canal Street.
Yet we called Canal Street our home for the next 26 years.
1970
My dad, Bob Sheinkopf, and his brother, my uncle Warren, took over from my grandfather. I wonder how they did it. My grandfather loved to work at Yale and especially loved his customers.
Bob and Warren were opposites. Dad is more cerebral while Warren is more hard charging. They made great business partners.
1984
We were evicted, again. We had been tenants at will on Canal Street, and in 1984 the landlord told us to move by the end of the year.
Looking dilapidated on the Southeast Expressway was our new home in Dorchester. You needed a map to find it, and back then Dorchester wasn’t the best place to sell high-end appliances. I remember measuring that building on the coldest day in December, thinking my dad had lost his mind. (I wasn’t the only one.) But he did well for a guy with zero construction experience. The store is the same way he left it, only with updated displays.
1985
I have always loved Dorchester. The neighbors were always nice to us. They probably appreciated the transformation of the building. And around the corner, Lambert’s Rainbow Market has a good sandwich and salad bar. That’s all I need.
That year Yale opened in Dorchester, although back then it was a bit dicey. One of my favorite recollections is Happy Paul’s, the gas station across the street. “Happy” Paul was anything but; he was always chewing a cigar and did not attempt to conceal his handgun, which he wore right in front for everyone to see.
Today Dorchester is alive and hip. My 25-year-old niece wants to live here, like many adults her age.
1986
I started working full-time at Yale, ready to make my mark. And why not? I had endured 13 years of part-time sweeping, cleaning and stacking boxes, and worked for Devil Dogs when I was seven. It was not my best negotiation, but they had the perfect combination of chocolate cake and vanilla filling.
I had dreams. Yale would be the best appliance store in the country, operating out of only one location. (I didn’t know about traffic patterns back then.) I also wanted a family with three kids and to retire in my 40’s to teach history.
None of that happened. Anyone who knows me is probably laughing about it now.
I had roughly three months of those dreams before Fretter, Highland Superstores, Circuit City and later Best Buy would usher in what I call the Superstore Era. Before then, Boston businesses were a bunch of mom-and-pop stores, like Yale.
There was also Lechmere, the most respected appliance and electronics chain in New England, and of course Sears, which was the most well-known retailer of all time. These companies turned the industry on its ear with massive advertising campaigns that included full pages in the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald. I couldn’t listen to my favorite radio stations without being assaulted by their commercials.
It was crazy … and changed my thinking forever. We couldn’t compete on such a massive scale of advertising. We would have to be different and rely on a better customer focus and execution.
1990-1994: The Early ’90s Recession
Many people forget this downtick in the local economy. I won’t. Real estate speculation wiped out most of the banks in the area. It was four years of hard sledding.
1995-1999
Highland and Fretter are bankrupt, Lechmere closed in 1997 along with other venerable regionals, and all those electrical distributors I mentioned earlier were either bought out or went bankrupt after being crippled by the recession.
Circuit City, which scared me after reading “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t,” never recovered. And Sears, which once accounted for half the appliances sold in the U.S., was never the same.
Yale is the only one to survive.
But then again, we had new competitors take their place, like Home Depot, Best Buy and Lowe’s.
Sept. 11, 2001
I remember sitting in a synagogue behind a man who lost his son. I couldn’t imagine the pain that man endured.
No customers entered our store for almost six weeks, ending a challenging period for everyone. But it wouldn’t be the last time we experienced empty stores.
2007-2009: The Great Recession
This one hurt. Once again, real estate speculation and tampering caused two nasty years. But in 2009 we turned a profit for the first time in over a decade, following heavy losses starting in 2006. This recession woke us up to obsess more about our customers and people.
2015
My favorite year was 2015.
I broke my promise of being the best single appliance store by adding another store in Framingham. Boston traffic starts in Framingham and I had to stop pretending that people would drive three hours to Dorchester to shop for appliances.
Most important, my daughter Sophia was born on Sept. 28. I never had that three-kid family, but she more than made up for that.
2020
The crowning year of my career should have been 2020. Our showroom in Hanover is a beautiful store, our largest to date, and was designed and built in-house by sales, facilities and our installers. On Jan. 4 we had 179 invited guests at the grand opening. It was a great night. Yet almost two months later the store was effectively closed with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
2021-2022
Even with supply-chain shortages and a looming unknown pandemic, we are spared the radical problems of other industries like travel and tourism. Most of my friends, family and business associates were largely unaffected by the coronavirus. That’s the most important part. Still, remote work, new suppliers and staff communication are all new management issues.
2023
Most product shortages are rectified, but we are facing the most well-orchestrated recession in 100 years. And we are building a warehouse in Norton just in time for that market to crater. Our timing is never right for just about anything.
Final Thoughts
I look at our history and wonder how a small regional company lasted 100 years.
My dad always used to say, “Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.” We are incredibly lucky to be in the Boston area. We grew as the city did from the 1950s. I also feel lucky to work with dedicated, talented people. There are always ups and downs in business and life, but great people will sustain you during those rough times.
Hopefully, the next generations will be lucky enough to write a similar story for the next 100 years.
Steve Sheinkopf is the third-generation CEO of acclaimed BrandSource member Yale Appliance and a lifelong Bostonian who still resides a mile from where he was born. He has been quoted in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Consumer Reports, The Boston Globe and Bloomberg Radio, and despite being one of the worst goalies of all time, is a huge fan of college hockey and the Boston Bruins. The love of his life is his daughter Sophie.
