When Your Chosen Path Chooses You
How an Unlikely Duo Became Business Partners Overnight
Evermore Pet Food has been in business for fourteen years now. Though officially a corporation, we’re really just two individuals who fifteen years ago would never have predicted that we’d be devoting a good chunk of our lives to making dog food — let alone together. In hindsight, the fact that our paths converged as they did feels like nothing short of divine intervention. According to conventional wisdom, would-be entrepreneurs should have two years of savings set aside, thorough market research and a solid business plan. We didn’t have any of these things. Instead, we had open hearts, fearless attitudes and roundabout serendipity. Here’s our story.
PRELUDE
It was 2001, in the aftermath of September 11th, and NYC’s Tribeca was a ghost town; in fact, the neighborhood below Canal Street was dubbed the “Frozen Zone.” A thousand residents were evacuated, and many more left voluntarily. Only a small contingency of neighborhood diehards remained behind amidst the smoldering rubble of the World Trade Center. Mary*, a neighborhood artist and dog-walker/boarder, and her Afghan Hound Luke were among the holdouts. Not long afterwards, Luke was diagnosed with cancer, and the vet gave him a six-month prognosis.
Refusing to accept this death sentence, Mary believed that Luke’s system had been poisoned by 9/11, and that he needed a gentle, detoxifying diet to support his immune system. She started cooking for him, and Luke ended up living for another six years. During this time, Mary devoted herself to refining his diet and went on to intern and consult with a well-respected holistic veterinarian.
As Luke’s health improved, Mary also began cooking for other dogs in the neighborhood. She soon had a thriving customer base in Tribeca, where she lived until late 2008. Then, like so many other neighborhood pioneers, she lost her affordable lease and moved to the wilds of Red Hook, Brooklyn. She rented a nearby storage space to house two freezers and hired a driver to deliver the food to her Manhattan customers.
Since dog food was not quite paying the bills, Mary continued boarding dogs in her new apartment. She would only live in Red Hook for a month before she crossed paths with another neighborhood artist and dog-walker/boarder, future Evermore co-founder, Hanna…
ENTER HANNA
It was 2008. I remember riding my bike into the relentless December wind down Van Brunt Street, an absurd amount of keys jangling from my belt loop. I remember being flagged down by two pedestrians with a request for my phone number to pass along to a sick friend in need of a dog walker over the holidays. I remember the phone call with a voice straining against infection on the other end. I will never forget our first meeting. Mary was a striking woman, with chiseled features, clear blue eyes and glasses that reminded me of fashion icon Iris Apfel. She was actually a fellow pet care provider, but a bout of pneumonia had rendered her unable to care for her own dog and her holiday boarding charges. After our initial meeting, I would return to her home three times a day for the next two months, sometimes to walk as many as five dogs. Her own dog, Bux, was an Afghan hound named after a Pakistani mystic and magician who was famous in the 1950’s. Bux was dark gray with some brindle markings on his face. He moved like a cat and indeed resembled a mystic… from Jim Henson’s “The Dark Crystal.”
As Mary recovered we struck up a friendship, and she continued to hire me as a dog walker long after it was truly necessary. I suspected that she was a little lonely and was as interested in the companionship for herself as for her dog. Over time I learned about tidbits of her life, like how she traveled across Canada in her 1989 Land Cruiser, started an eco-fashion line long before eco was fashion and had been a painter with a massive loft in Tribeca. She was a living testament to a New York that seemed to only exist in the nostalgia of an older generation.
I learned about the dog food in much the same way I learned about every other aspect of Mary, in snippets over time. I knew that she had the food cooked in an incubator co-pack upstate. She stored it in large chest freezers at a garage space that she rented around the corner. Once a week a hired driver picked up her orders and made deliveries in Manhattan. Every few weeks she would make custom batches of food for a few private clients in two enormous lobster pots. At times she expressed interest in having me do some sort of work related to selling the food. This always seemed purely hypothetical. I was willing to help and somewhat intrigued, but outside of my dog walking business, I was also busy with painting, my newfound love of trapeze and simply being 27 in Brooklyn.
Everything changed one morning in early October. My phone rang, and when I saw Mary’s number on caller ID, I assumed she was just checking in to make sure I hadn’t forgotten about Bux. The halting voice on the other end struggled to slur out the words, “I think I am having a stroke.”
“Did you call 911?” She hadn’t yet. I rushed to her apartment where she sat in bed dazed and partially paralyzed. Soon after my arrival, the paramedics came and took her to the hospital; at the time no one could have predicted that she would never again be outside of a medical institutional setting. What I did know was that I felt an obligation to help in any way I could.
The day became a blur of hospital visits, phone calls and emails. The initial prognosis was good. There would be four to six weeks of intensive rehab, and Mary would be able to return to life as usual. With no relatives or close friends to step in, I suddenly found myself in the role of surrogate daughter — managing the mundane aspects of her life like paying rent and bills (things I barely had a handle on myself), taking care of Bux and running her business operations. In the beginning there were others from the neighborhood helping as well, and many of her Tribeca friends and clients came to visit her in the hospital. Still, I was in a bit over my head until my friend Ethan suggested that another dog-walking client, Alison, might be able to sublet Mary’s apartment during the recovery phase and use her training as a health-supportive chef to help with the business.
Alison became my client out of geographic convenience as she had lived downstairs from Ethan and his dog, Bogey. I knew her dog Connor better — he was a spirited greeter, exuberantly jumping and scraping his polydactyl paws down my legs. His outgoing nature extended to strangers on walks. Once he tried to jump on a meter maid, who was not amused. In contrast, Alison was quite reserved. When she came to see Mary’s apartment and we sat down to discuss the subletting arrangements, it was the longest conversation we’d ever had.
Everything seemed settled. Alison was going to Florida for a few weeks, but upon her return would sublet for the following month while Mary was in intensive rehabilitation. I felt a sense of satisfaction in being helpful as well, until I received a call from the hospital. Mary had suffered two more “neurological events.” She was now completely paralyzed on her right side, mostly paralyzed on her left side and unable to speak or swallow. Despite her extreme physical limitations, Mary and I were able to communicate with a placard that had the alphabet printed on it. She could use her left hand to point at letters, spelling out instructions, dog food recipes and her preferences for nursing homes (which I was tasked with touring.)
The bleeding in Mary’s brain was a riptide that had dragged her miles away from the life that she knew and swept me up in the current — or more accurately into the vacuum, the empty space that family or close friends would otherwise have occupied. My life became indefinitely consumed with taking care of Mary’s.
ENTER ALISON
It was August of 2009. I had just finished up a grueling but rewarding summer working as sous-chef at Camp Ballibay in northeastern PA. After 30 years in business, the camp had decided to shift from serving kids processed, pre-packaged crap to making fresh, locally sourced, from scratch meals. The head chef and I created their new food program and co-ran the kitchen, and a very small team of people successfully pulled off a very large job (under budget even!). While there, my landlord informed me that he had sold my Carroll Gardens apartment, and I had to be out by the end of the month. Since I had wrapped up my personal chef gigs before heading off for the summer, nothing was really tying me to NYC. I put most of my stuff in storage, and Connor and I headed down to Florida for a few months to stay with my parents while I figured out my next steps.
In early October, I got a call from a friend in Brooklyn who had to travel for a few weeks, asking if I felt like coming up to take care of her cat. Still untethered to any place or job, and with trustworthy care for Connor, I said sure. The night I arrived, my phone rang. It was my former private cooking client and old next-door neighbor, David, asking when I could start cooking for him again. Over the next 48 hours, a few other well-timed events occurred, and the synchronicity had me rethinking my future. It felt as if the universe was telling me that my time in NYC was not over (at that point, I was California dreaming). I decided to find a sublet so I could reestablish my health-supportive personal chef business and see if I was reading the signs correctly.
The next day, I went to David’s to cook his week’s worth of meals. As I was leaving his apartment, I ran into my old friend and neighbor Ethan and asked if he had any sublet leads. He thought for a second, then said, “Hmm, I might have the perfect situation for you.” A few hours later, I was in Red Hook sitting across from Hanna, our mutual dog walker, whom I barely knew. We were in a huge, loft-like apartment with a view of the Statue of Liberty and art leaning on every surface. There were also copious books strewn throughout the apartment on dog heath and nutrition, along with piles of hand-written index cards and computer printouts on the subjects. The woman who lived here, Mary, was a dog-walking client and friend of Hanna’s who had just had a stroke and would be in the hospital for four to six weeks. She had a small, local dog food business, and Hanna didn’t have much food experience. Perhaps I could stay there at a reduced rent while I helped make custom batches for Mary’s private customers?
How could I say no? An opportunity had just presented itself that combined my deep, lifelong passions for healthy food, dogs and helping people. As sad as I was about the situation, I was excited to be in a position where I could add real value to someone who needed all the love and support she could get at the moment. Plus, in my mind, good food was good food — it didn’t matter whether the end users were restaurant goers, kids or dogs. In the meantime, I would have a few weeks to calmly find a place to live. Mary’s business would not have to suffer in her absence, and I’d go my merry way once she was back on her feet. It all seemed straightforward, so I made arrangements to go back to Florida and retrieve Connor.
While en route back to Brooklyn, Hanna called. Mary had suffered two more neurological events that had led to a much less optimistic prognosis. She would not be leaving the hospital anytime soon, though there was still hope she would recover. She had to start physical therapy ASAP, and her need to focus on rehabilitation would greatly hinder her ability to focus on dog food. Now that I’d be here, living amid her belongings indefinitely, perhaps I could help with the next production run, too? All of a sudden, it didn’t seem so simple anymore. Things moved quickly at that point. I had never met Mary before her stroke yet suddenly found myself in her home and custodian of her life’s work.
From the get go, it was clear to me that the food was transformative. In less than a month, even Connor (who hasn’t had a bad meal in his life) became more energetic, got a shiner coat, slimmed down and had perfect poop — just like back in the day when I had more time on my hands to cook for him. This food had to keep being made, a sentiment echoed by a small but dedicated group of customers. I visited Mary as often as possible, setting aside soups to bring her that I had made for my personal chef clients. I so badly wanted to ease her mind and keep her engaged — regularly reviewing recipes, consulting about sourcing and discussing nutrition.
November came and went. Mary was still immersed in physical therapy, though it had become more and more obvious that she would not be leaving the nursing home anytime soon, or ever. Still clinging to the hope that she might get better, Hanna and I began spending most of our time together, trying to get a handle on her business… until we realized it was a total mess from any regulatory standpoint and in serious debt. It was time for a state of the union. We were running ourselves ragged working for free in the most expensive city in the country for someone who may never recover, but we truly believed in the idea of home cooking for dogs. If we were going to invest our time, money and expertise into making dog food, we needed to start from scratch and have ownership. Plus, we still had to do a significant amount of research, laboratory testing and formulation.
In early December, we met with Mary. As difficult as it was for her to acknowledge the reality of her situation, she also cared deeply that dogs would be able to have access to a gently cooked, detoxifying diet. With her blessing, Evermore was born… and with it, a very steep learning curve into the realities of running a business.
LAYING ROOTS TOGETHER
The early days were a whirlwind of epiphanies, small triumphs and minor fumbles. First on our agenda was to formulate a food we could responsibly sell to the public, ensuring that it contained everything a dog needed to thrive in correct proportion. This took a few months, and a lot of back and forth with qualified experts, but by the time we were done, we had all the confidence in the world about the quality of our food. When it came to branding, however, we felt way over our heads, despite our decades of combined art and writing backgrounds. We outsourced all design work, without even considering that we could do it ourselves. We quickly learned otherwise and have since become empowered to create all of our own branding, packaging and content including our logo and website.
Next, it was time to pound the pavement. Our success rate was astonishingly high, especially given our novel category in the humongous pet food industry. We cold called or simply walked into stores — the overwhelming majority ordering on the spot — and spent weekends doing demos in front of our new retailers, scooping food and beckoning canine passersby to try a free sample. Almost every dog we encountered, including the pickiest and most skittish, devoured the food. This validated our belief that we were making the best food out there and gave us the chutzpah to try winning over some of the less receptive retailers.
For example, after seven sales calls to one store in the West Village, the owner finally softened enough to allow us to leave product on consignment. Without skipping a beat, Hanna countered that instead of just leaving the food with him, we’d prove our merit by bringing a few cases into the store, setting up in front on a nice day and making as many sales as we could. He sheepishly accepted our terms. By the end of the day, we had practically sold through everything we had brought with us and landed the account.
By late spring, Evermore was sold in 32 stores throughout NYC and the Hudson Valley, and we thought we had arrived. Our optimism was matched only by our naïvete. Just a few short months after putting our life’s savings into the business, we were solicited by a payroll company and signed up immediately. We took a grand total of one paycheck before realizing that meager salaries would be in the distant future, one that has just recently arrived.
The buoyancy, of course, was counterweighted by Mary’s situation. We visited frequently, sharing stories of Evermore’s early wins. She seemed genuinely pleased with our progress and celebrated our successes with us. Then in May, she was diagnosed with pneumonia, chose to refuse treatment and became a Hospice patient. Hanna brought her beloved dog, Bux, down to the care facility for a final visit. After Mary said her goodbyes, she had Hanna take him down to the beach, in view of her windows and watched him frolic in the sand. A week later, she passed away.
We both love Evermore and what we do — in fact, it’s hard to imagine making a product more impactful than ours; however, we have also had to grapple emotionally and spiritually with how the company came to be. When Alison told David, her private cooking client and an intuitive holistic healer, about the course of events as they were happening, he referenced divine intervention as a way to process it. “It’s a beautiful cycle really. One person is ready to move beyond this world and has made space for others with shared passions who are ready to lay roots, allowing for something meaningful to blossom.” His words still resonate with us today, because it’s really hard to imagine arriving on this path any other way.
* Names have been changed to protect privacy.
