New Haven Goodies To Go!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Steve Thomas, owner of new HavenDirect Connect, And I'll tell you you're
dealer with all good lord everyone,all the big boys, Liuzi, Grand
Fox and Park, Lusibello's, Apiicella's, I mean all my favorites, Pat
and Eos Clayers, I love Clears, Ferrara's the good Lord. Anybody who's

(00:22):
anybody in new Haven food? Right, Yeah, that's the fact. But
just let me ask you this onequestion, Steve, what the hell do
you do? I'm trying to understandwhat new Haven Direct Connect is doing.
You've been operating for about ten months. Are you connecting people out of state
with their beloved new Haven treats?Is that what it is? That is

(00:45):
exactly what we're doing. So,you know, I had the idea about
five years ago and after seeing peoplebemoan the fact on Facebook and places like
that that you know, they movedaway. You can't get good Italian food
down here. Oh my god,I miss hummost hot dogs it's been years
since at one, you know,and stuff like that. So I put

(01:07):
a kind of a feeler out onone of the Worcester Street pages. You
know, if there was a businessthat could bring new Haven foods to you
would that be something that you wouldbe interested in patronizing And people were like
overwhelming with the overwhelmingly supportive of it. So, you know, I'm a
marketing guide by trade, and inbetween jobs, I would move this this

(01:27):
business forward a little bit and Italked to more partners, and then I
get hired again, so I'd haveto put it on the back burner.
Well, anyway, this last timearound, I said, you know what,
I'm going to call in a fewfavors. We're going to build the
website out. I'm going to tellall these partners who've been patiently waiting for
me to get this thing launched,that we're really going this time. And
then we launched, and some ofthe notes I get, Benny, you

(01:52):
can't believe how emotionally like responses peopleare. They're so thankful and that makes
me feel great. Like I liketo say, mission statement is to make
people happy by just bringing them foodthey miss, and that's kind of what
we're doing. Yeah, it's somany funny things come to mind. I
mean, one just thinking about ifmy mom were still with us and she

(02:14):
passed long ago and moved out toLas Vegas for the last eighteen nineteen years
of her life, and she wouldhave been shipping like crazy. She would
have been a huge customer of yours. She would she would come home for
visits and pack Humbles for the flightback. That's That's just one that I

(02:38):
remember was Humbles and she's like,he can't get a good hot dog there,
And I just thought that was comical. So there's a lot of people
who would love us, a lotof people who who might not. I
mean the governor himself, he wantspeople to fly here just for our hot

(02:59):
dog bugs and pizza. And nowyou're making it easy on people. Well,
at least we're promoting businesses. Andthe businesses in the state are getting
the business right. I mean,they're still doing the sales. And it's
funny because in most cases I talkedto the suppliers and they're these sales that
they had no solution for. So, you know, like Apicella's, for

(03:21):
example, would get calls all thetime, and they tried shipping a little
bit here and there, but itwas a pain in the next for them.
Yeah, and none of these suppliersare good at it. We've spent
time to dial it in, youknow, the right packaging to keep it
cold. We don't ship overnight.We ship two days, so the shipping
crucks are more reasonable, you know. But some of the other guys,
they're just like, look, wehope you do great, so we can

(03:43):
get out of this shipping business.It's not what we're good at. Yes,
and so there are sales that theycouldn't service at all before, so
it's just found money for them,which is good. Yeah, I remember.
And now I'm going back away asI'm going back to my case you
want to one days, I'm goingback to the late nineties in one of
our veered you know, a talentdelicacy joints. I don't necessarily want to

(04:04):
call them out, partially because I'mnot sure if I've got the right place.
But we made a big deal.We announced on the air, Hey
they've begun shipping. You know,you could now ship and isn't this going
to be great? And I did, geez, I can actually circle around
with you. I'm like, thisis a little taste of home that I
can and it fell apart like realquick. They weren't good at it,

(04:25):
they couldn't do it well. Andit was like, oh, this was
going to be this great thing.I was going to be able to ship
my mom this for Mother's Day,et cetera, et cetera. And they
wound up realizing we've been off waymore than we can chew because shipping food
and getting there fresh. How doyou ship pizza Rustica? Yeah, we

(04:45):
believe it or not. We soldand shipped over one hundred and we just
we put it in insulated containers withfrozen gel packs on the top and on
the bottom, and it keeps itcold. And the way it's packaged,
they're tougher than you think they are. Some of the other products we have
to double box, like Italian payStreet make sure it doesn't you know,
crack when it's in shippment. Butthe Abata game was just like you know,

(05:11):
it all showed up just fine.It's probably so full of meat that
it can't break apart. I don'tknow. Yeah, you gotta you just
you omaha, steak it, youknow, I mean, you know,
the easy enough, the styrofoam container, the ice packs, like you said,
Uh now, am I understanding correctly? And I could be wrong here
again. Where I'm with Steve Thomas, he's he owned or something genius.

(05:32):
It's New Haven direct connect you want. You're out of state, you're far
away from where you were born andraised, but you miss blackies from Cheshire,
or you miss some LAMBERTI sausage.Oh man, I can't even believe
Claire's cornucopia. That's the one that'sreally got you. That. That's great,
because I just wonder how the hellyou ship that. Aren't you doing

(05:54):
something? Is there a partnership ofsome sort? I could be completely wrong,
and if I am, I'll takecare of it. Uh. But
with Taste of new Haven, wejust talked to them. Yeah, so
I, Colin and I were talkingfor a while about, you know,
just getting together so he could understandwhat our business was. And you know,
anybody that's involved with new Haven Foods, I want to help promote them,

(06:16):
and of course I would like forthem to help promote us too.
So he's he's doing. There's afestival that's going to happen in September.
We're probably going to exhibit there thathe just gave us a nice shout out
on that's what I saw media,which is appreciated. That's exactly, Yeah,
that's what I saw. I'll tellyou that your your web page is
a thing of beauty New Haven directconnect. I mean just the way it

(06:40):
slowly kind of comes, uh comesat you, and you know you're you're
right at opening it because man,the changes pretty quick, satisfying appetite for
nostalgia from anywhere in the US,Woolster Street and beyond. And it's this
nice like kind of zoom on WoosterStreet. Isn't that shot or isn't an
older one? I think it's fairlyrecent. I you know, I purchased

(07:05):
a photo because I wanted to doeverything on the up and up. But
it looks like that art shot isfairly recent beautiful though. I loved it
when I saw it. And youknow, I'm a new Haven guy,
so all of this stuff is reallyyou know, I feel like I can
speak credibly firsthand about the brands becauseI grew up with them myself. You

(07:25):
know, like you, I'm aNew Haven guy and you were talking about
taking hot dogs on the plane.One of my favorite stories is a lady
told me she got pulled out ofthe line by the TSA because they thought
she had dynamite in her shuitcase.That's that's hysterical. That's been a thing
in my family, even beyond mymom. Before my mom even moving away,

(07:49):
her siblings who moved out of statewhen they were kids, they always
left with I remember being a littlekid and saying, why don't you just
buy them at home? And they'relike, because Hummels is only here,
you know. I remember the dayrealizing Humbles is just in Connecticut, which
I think has probably changed at leasta little bit since then, at least
in the Tri state area. Butnot knowing, you know, it was

(08:11):
just growing up watching the older womenin my family pack hot dogs and red
hots and yeah, pretty comical Isee here though, And good for you
man. On the web page,you could do three course New Haven Italian
Sunday dinner kits and you have differentpairings and it's quite so you could add
handwritten personalized notes that this is anambitious undertaking and kind of I got to

(08:37):
give it up to you kind ofgenius man. Well thank you. I
appreciate it, you know. Andit was just we're meeting in need that's
out there, and you know,like I said, I saw these people
who were really unhappy they couldn't getthe food. So, you know,
the beauty of our businesses you canmix and match. You're basically making your
own grocery box and then we goliterally shopped for it, and then we

(08:58):
pack it and then we ship itout to you. And we tried to
come out with some packages used tomake it a little simpler for people.
So like, for example, ifyou don't feel like cooking or you don't
feel like putting together your own dinnerpackage, We've got those three course meals
which are they're antipass and then there'sa pasta course that comes with sausage and
it comes with sauce, and thenyou get Italian pastry for dessert. So

(09:20):
it's all set for you, youknow, if you want to order that
way. There's a there's a makeyour own pizza kit, there's a Sunday
sauce kit where you get canned tomatoesand brush all and meatballs and sausage.
So you know, we tried togive people a little bit of a head
start if they want it. Yeah, it's great stuff. It's new Haven
Direct Connect and as I said,again, just just hop right on.

(09:43):
That's exactly what the web page is, New havendirectconnect dot com and starts shopping
away everything you could possibly think of. Seems to be covered eighteen, the
eighteen flavors of Fox and Park Sodaright there, which that's yeah, that's
fun. Way to Florida a littlebit, which you never A lot of
these, these these great brands havestretched their legs and ways. I never

(10:07):
thought they were gonna anyway, buta lot of them haven't too. Uh,
Steve Thomas, I think, uh, I think you're onto something here
and I hope will stay in touchif you'd like. I mean, do
you think Vinnie Penn autographed headshots?Do you think that would be a big
seller? Or maybe we can comeout with the Vinnie Penn Sauce combination or
something like that. I don't thinkthe head shots would fly either, but

(10:31):
I'm here to help my man keepyou posted. I appreciate it, Bennie.
Thank you for having me on.All Right, talk soon, all
right, Bye bye,