E. Jay Myers was in a Deep Sleep When His
Cell Phone Rang at Midnight on Sept. 5.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y., Sept. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- The co-owner and president
of Goodfella's Old World Brick Oven Pizza, Myers answered and listened as an
employee explained excitedly that he and his coworkers at one of the company's
Staten Island, N.Y., stores wanted to construct a memorial for the anniversary
of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the nearby World Trade Centers.
Still foggy from the unexpected reveille, Myers paused, wondering whether
to be pleased or perturbed.
"I said, 'It's midnight. Did you have to call now?'" said Myers, whose
company has seven restaurants. "I just told them, 'Great idea. Do what you
want -- but let's talk about it in the morning. OK?'"
The next day, the employees were already at work building a scale model of
the Manhattan skyline as viewed from Staten Island. Its centerpiece, Myers
was told, would be clear, twin four-foot-tall lighted towers symbolizing the
fallen buildings. Lighted wood replicas of the skyline's remaining buildings
would flank the Plexiglas monoliths.
Several Goodfella's employees spent five days creating a scale model of
the Manhattan skyline for a 9/11 memorial service held outside one of the
company's Staten Island restaurants. In the center of the model, which is
mounted to the restaurant's storefront, are clear World Trade Center towers
lit from below.
"These guys have been staying up until 3 in the morning working on this
thing ever since Thursday," Meyers said in an interview four days after the
project began. "Tonight we're going to have a memorial service here, and
we'll light it all up. It really looks great."
The difference a year makes
Much has changed at Goodfella's Hyland Blvd. store since the day two
hijacked jetliners crashed into what once were the world's two tallest
buildings. Located about 10 miles away from the Ground Zero, the restaurant's
typically festive atmosphere is back after disappearing for months amid the
lingering gloom of the attacks. Sales, which nearly evaporated in the weeks
immediately following the attacks, also have returned to normal.
"We couldn't project the goodwill we always projected in our stores; the
whole experience changed for a couple months," said Scot Cosentino,
Goodfella's co-owner and vice president. Stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike
on the morning of the attacks, Cosentino witnessed the collapse of both
towers. "Five-hundred people from Staten Island alone died in that. It was
like everybody knew somebody. So everyone who did come in ... you were afraid
to ask how they were doing because you didn't know if they lost somebody."
Today, both Cosentino and Meyers know it was a good thing that business
dropped off immediately after the tragedy; it freed the company's staff of
200 to help feed thousands of volunteers involved in the search, rescue and
recovery efforts across the Upper New York Bay in Manhattan.
On the afternoon of Sept. 11, Meyers called New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's
office to offer help. At 7 a.m. the next day, a Giuliani aide called back and
asked if Goodfella's could prepare and deliver food to a Staten Island
ferry-staging area. From there, the food would be shipped across the bay to
Ground Zero.
"We cooked everything they asked for, even things that weren't even on our
menu," said Meyers. "But the biggest request we got was for fruit. The
people involved in the rescue knew they could eat fruit without having to stop
digging. That gives you an idea of what kind of people these were."
Days later, a call from Gov. George Pataki's office asked that Goodfella's
supply food for Red Cross workers as well. To help in the effort, Cosentino
said foodservice distributors and "just regular people" stopped by unannounced
to drop off provisions.
What soon became a nearly non-stop cook-and-deliver cycle left Goodfella's
staff emotionally torn, Meyers said, because all were deeply saddened and many
were angry. But the combination of their desire to help and the pace of all
the activity took their minds off their own feelings.
"I remember at one point, Scot asked me, 'How much is this costing us?' I
said, 'Does it matter?' And he said, 'No, it doesn't matter.'
"We wanted to do the right thing, and we didn't want finances to get in
the way."
But two facts couldn't be ignored: Goodfella's, a relatively small
company, had given away about $50,000 in meals, and since the attacks, its
paying customers were still missing in action.
"Talk about a cash crunch," Meyers recalled with a laugh. "It certainly
changed our financial condition in a hurry, and that didn't improve for a
couple of months."
Added Cosentino: "We gave away 7,000 meals, coupled with no business for
a couple of weeks. It got pretty lean around here for awhile, if you know
what I mean."
Business returns
As winter settled in and rumors of terrorist threats diminished, locals
ventured from their homes to resume their normal lifestyles. Goodfella's
customer traffic picked up once again -- followed by a steady stream of
requests for franchise information.
Many of the 200,000 workers displaced by the towers' destruction,
Cosentino said, were considering a new line of work and had heard about the
small chain via the rescue efforts.
Whether any of those inquiries will result in new franchises remains to be
seen, but for the immediate future, Cosentino said the company is facing a
daunting growth spurt. Last September there were five Goodfella's stores, and
the company has added two since then. Five more, Meyers said, are slated for
opening in Connecticut, New York, Indiana and New Jersey before year's end.
"There are about another 30 stores in the works," said Cosentino, whose
company has recently broadened its wood-fired oven selections to include
steaks. "Business has come back again, and now we're hoping it stays that
way."
Meyers credits his staff's attitude as one reason good times have returned
to Goodfella's, and he cites his customers' determination to make the best out
of a bad situation as another.
Framed on a wall in Goodfella's Hyland Blvd. store are dozens of patches
representing fire and police rescue crews that helped in the recovery effort.
Many of the crew members visited Goodfella's to thank its owners for the
donated food.
"Pretty early on we decided that we had to come into work in a good mood
so that our customers could have a fun place to go. That wasn't easy for
everybody, but we chose to do it," Meyers said. "You finally get to a point
where you have to decide whether you'll be apathetic about this and let
terrorism get the best of you, or you can say to yourself that this is our
world and we've got to do something about it."
Perhaps most touching to both men, as well as Scot's brother, Marc
Cosentino, a Goodfella's co-owner and former New York City policeman, was the
number of rescue workers who thanked them personally. Framed on a wall in
Goodfella's Hyland Blvd. store are dozens of badges from police and fire crews
who came from all around the U.S. to help in the rescue effort.
"For months these people kept coming," said Cosentino. "Some of them were
searching through the rubble that they took from Ground Zero to Staten Island.
I mean, these people were having to look for body parts in all that, and they
came to see us. We were blown away."
A time to remember
At 8:30 p.m., on Sept. 9, about 80 people gathered outside Goodfella's
Hyland Blvd. store for a memorial service. Tucked neatly behind the store's
large neon sign sat the end result of the staff's labor of love: a
20-foot-long recreation of the forever-changed Manhattan skyline. The clear
towers in the center were lighted from below, and hundreds of Christmas lights
glowed in the mock windows of the flat wooden buildings framing them.
Candles were lit, "God Bless America" was sung, and two nuns led the
gathering in a few short prayers.
The overall mood was mixed, Cosentino said. Some in the crowd cried, while
others chatted with friends, rehashing memories of that awful day. He said
the evening reminded him of the days immediately following the attacks ...
when the city's legendary drivers stopped honking their horns in haste ...
when cars stopped to let pedestrians cross the street ... when strangers
became friends by talking about the tragic loss that bound them.
"I've never seen people here stop what they were doing and talk to each
other like that," Cosentino said, soberly. "We were all on the same team all
of a sudden. I can't explain it. But that was such a plus point of the whole
tragedy."
Asked on Sept. 10 whether locals were concerned that President Bush had
put the country on high alert because of potential terrorist actions,
Cosentino casually said he'd not heard a thing about it.
"If you listen to the press too much, you can get nervous easily," he
said. "But you've got to live your life. Matter of fact, my wife and I are
going to Manhattan tonight for some dinner. It'll be a good time. We won't
think anything about it."
SOURCE pizzamarketplace.com
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Related links:
http://www.goodfellas.com
http://www.pizzamarketplace.com
CONTACT:
E. Jay Myers of Goodfella's, +1-718-987-2422,
or cell, +1-917- 622-0304
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