The Unconventional Independent

Under Ring Bros. Marketplace's unique model, each department operates as an independent business in itself.

Ring Bros. Marketplace, based in South Dennis, Mass., is as independent as an independent grocer can get. Not only is the store privately owned and operated, but it's also made up of six individually owned businesses, which function as separate business units that individually manage the company's various store departments.

Although the unique setup might sound complex, it's actually a seamless mechanism that makes it difficult to distinguish where one ends and another begins. Indeed, elements of each function as a well-oiled machine and permeate every corner of the store, in the form of sampling stations, cross-departmental meal solution promotions, cooking demonstrations and seven large flat-screen TVs.

These businesses comprise Ring Bros. Markets, which is not only the flagship store's namesake, but also an organizational structure in which each department "specializes" in its respective domain: fresh produce, dairy and grocery items; Harney's Liquors, which offers wines, craft brews and top-shelf liquors; Dark Horse Beef and Deli, which features a selection of all-natural beef, chicken, cheese and deli products; Nata's Noodles and Montilio's Express offering desserts, freshly made pasta and prepared gourmet foods; Spinner's Pizza & Burrito, where gourmet pizzas, burritos, take-home meals and homemade desserts are available; and Chatham Fish & Lobster, which sells fresh-caught fish (many right from the Cape), shellfish and lobster.

With industry roots that date back to 1925 in Salem, Mass., the third generation of Ring brothers, led by Ed Ring, moved the business to Cape Cod in the early 1970s, finally settling into its current location in 2002. Ed Ring expanded the business in the 1990s, creating a specialty store, Broadway Marketplace, near Harvard Yard in Cambridge.

A new concept

"I guess you can call me the innovator of the concept," declares Ed Ring, who recalls arriving at the idea for his grocery company's unique model about 15 years ago in Paris, where there were all of these individual markets. Here was a bakery, across the street was a meat market, next door was a cheese market. It was common to find them as separate boutique stores located near each other, each with their own look and feel. Some traditional supermarkets try to do this with store-within-store concepts, but unfortunately don't quite pull it off — at least not authentically.

"Not long after my Paris trip, an opportunity opened up in the Cambridge area," Ed Ring continues. "I signed a lease in the store, and then handpicked the best local businesses to come into the store with us."

Based on the model's success, he replicated it when an opportunity arose in Cape Cod. "I'm the manager of Dennis Management Co., which actually controls the store and is the vehicle to pay the rent, distribute the money and so forth," explains Ed Ring. "I'm the owner of the market part of the store, and there are six owners total — all handpicked." [Since the interview, Marc Reingold, owner of Harney's, has been made manager of Dennis Management Co.-Ed.]

While the operation has enjoyed success since early on in the life of the business, it's no easy task. Keeping the momentum going means that the business must recreate itself every day, according to Ed Ring.

"We've made many improvements over the last couple of years," he explains. "We just restructured our entire front end. We had four registers, now we have six; we spent $150,000 on a new front end system, which has dramatically improved our efficiencies. We just put in several flat-screen TVs throughout the store." Heeding the timeless retailing adage that if you're standing still, you're going backwards, Ed Ring says it's paramount to keep pace with evolving consumer expectations: "I don't want to look dated. I need to be 2010 — I can't be 2003. We have a full-time maintenance associate — not many single-store independents have that. He keeps the store shining, pressure washing, painting," and generally maintains the store's many moving parts in pristine condition. "Your store can never look tired."

While Ed Ring's "personal" portion of the business accounts for approximately 40 percent of the store's sales, it's by no means a traditional grocery department. To the contrary, its grocery offerings consist of about 20 percent mainstream products, with the remaining 80 percent comprising unique and specialty items that the store receives via UPS deliveries several times a day. Ed Ring prefers to do business with suppliers that support the nontraditional business model with regular product demos and participation in the store's many themed events.

Perfecting the Core

The store was profitable almost from year one, and the driver of this success, according to Ed Ring, is how the business model allows the various sub-businesses to focus strongly on their core competencies. "When the fish guy opens in the morning, all of his energy is into making the fish look good," he says. "Same with the meat guy — everyone is totally responsible for their own product and department. It's a little different from a traditional supermarket, where you have a manager rather than an owner doing it. When you have an owner doing it, they have more vested in the department's success."

Tying the departments together are Pat Ring, son of Ed Ring, who serves as the store's buyer and operations manager, and Donald Fallon, the store's general manager, who, in addition to managing the front end, handles the store's marketing and promotions, including cooking demos (Fallon attended the Culinary Institute of America). Together, the pair handles everything connected with running the business, so the individual owners can do what they do best: sell their products.

"We've gotten to the point now where it's really automatic," says Fallon. "Pat Ring will send me a list of things that he wants to have sampled out, and a schedule of promotions and events, and I'll work with the various owners to assemble everything that's needed, and do it. Generally, when it comes to the demos, I try to use ingredients that I know are going to be in the store seasonally, that we're always going to have on hand. For example, I probably wouldn't do something with rabbit, because we're very rarely going to have rabbit in the store. But if there's something special that we want to do, such an Oktoberfest, Pat Ring is steadfast in making sure we have enough sausages."

Fallon and Pat Ring, meanwhile, keep up a constant dialogue with the various department owners, determining what ingredients they'd like to promote each month, and then working these items into the various events. Fallon also taps the insights of "resident experts" such Laurie Carullo, owner of Nada's Noodles, and her partner, Frans Weterrings, who's also a chef, to bounce ideas off to refine the process. "This month, we did coq au vin, and we had a long conversation about the nuances of preparation, such as comparing traditional vs. contemporary, views of what constitutes the ‘classic garnish' and so forth. This helps us better educate our customers. The people who shop here appreciate the finer details of food art. They like to know that little trivia, the small pearl onion in the bacon, how you sauté them, how you use them to garnish a meal. That's something you don't see at a lot of grocery stores."

Quenching the Thirst

Moving from a standalone store to a department less than half the size actually helped grow sales for Harney's Liquors, the business that serves as the store's adult-beverage haven. "We moved from a 9,000-square-foot location to a 4,000-squarefoot department," notes owner Marc Reingold, "yet my sales have doubled, and we're more profitable as part of Ring Bros."

Helping to drive these sales is Harney's tie-in to the food businesses surrounding it, as well as Reingold's adjustment of his assortment to leverage the food connection. "Previously, we sold beer and liquor with a small selection of wine," he says. "Now wine is a major focus, since wine naturally goes with food."

This food-wine relationship has become an integral part of regular Ring Bros. events coordinated and hosted by Fallon. "The folks from Harney's will get together with me before the cooking demos to discuss which wines we want to pair with the meal," says Fallon. "When the dish is done, I'll bring someone from Harney's over and he'll open the bottle of wine, everybody will get a sample, and then he'll talk about the wine for a bit — and hopefully they'll buy that, too," he quips. "Then we serve the food, and the guests see how well it pairs with the wine."

"That happens with a lot of our demos," Ed Ring reflects. "They'll come in and see them, but they've already got their dinners planned for that night. They'll take the recipe home, and then the next day or a few days later, they'll come in and get all the ingredients and make them for their families. In many cases, they make it more than once," based on verbatim feedback he picks up from multiple demo attendees.

Other events that tie in wine are the store's Spring and Fall Food & Wine Festivals, during which shoppers can sample new products while tasting some of Harney's latest offerings. The free event includes cooking demonstrations throughout the day, and gourmet food purveyors from around the country are on hand to give out samples of new products. During these festivals, Harney's holds its popular Grand Wine Tasting, which features a selection of more than 50 fine wines from around the world.

Here's the Beef

Richard Pimental, owner of Ring's Dark Horse Beef & Deli — which features the store's meat, deli and gourmet cheese departments — left his job as general manager at an A&P to help Ed Ring develop his Broadway Marketplace store in Cambridge, Mass. He also has a store of his own, Cotuit Fresh Market, which is run by his wife, Lori, and son, John.

Dark Horse's butcher shop features 100 percent USDA Choice all-natural meats cut fresh daily, including premium Black Angus beef, a full line of all-natural chicken and a wide variety of sausages, as well as popular cuts of lamb, pork and veal. Its deli offers hundreds of gourmet cheeses sourced from around the world, and now carries a full line of Boar's Head products.

Despite the varied selection available at Dark Horse, if you ask Pimental, it's service that sets the shop apart. "You have to really spend the time and thoroughly educate employees on how to help shoppers," he says. "They should be able to help the consumer decide which product is right for them, explain how it should be prepared, and suggest food and beverages that will complement a customer's selection."

Oodles of Noodles

Nata's Noodles was a local producer, wholesaler and retailer of fresh pasta that serviced many Boston-area restaurants. Carullo, Nata's owner, was invited to join Ring Bros. because she was the best local producer of the specialty item. "It's the only fresh pasta on the Cape," she says. "When we were a standalone store, we were predominantly a wholesale business. When we joined Ring Bros., though, we had extra space and expanded the business to include prepared foods, homemade soups and salads."

Nata's is also where you'll find another Ring Bros.' chef: Weterrings, who prepares the fresh offerings available at Nata's and assists with its catering business. While the retail business has grown, Carullo still sells fresh pasta wholesale to local restaurants.

She also runs the store's Montilio's Bakery Express, a satellite store of Montillo's Baking Co., a well-known Boston bakery that opened in 1947.

Spinners Pizza & Burrito

Like Nata's, Spinners Pizza & Burrito is also a woman-owned business that began as a standalone operation before Ed Ring came calling. Owner Rita MacLellan immediately loved the idea of joining the marketplace.

"The great thing about Ring Bros. is that you have support all around you," MacLellan beams. "Don [Fallon] does a great job of putting together promotions and including our various businesses in his cooking demonstrations. Our customers love when he runs his class on making pizza from scratch. Some of the other owners we've known for years, so it was comfortable to enter this setting where there is a high level of mutual respect."

Spinners sells everything pizza, and it's all good: pizza by the slice, whole pizzas, homemade pizza dough, pizza toppings and gourmet pizzas are among its many offerings. It complements its prized pizza business with a host of Mexican foods, including burritos in a variety of flavors, quesadillas and other south-of-the-border favorites.

Chatham Fish & Lobster

Owned by David Carnes, Chatham Fish & Lobster has been a Cape Cod favorite for years in its original South Chatham location — which is still in operation — and continues the tradition at Ring Bros. with seafood that's caught fresh daily. Its offerings include fresh fish such as flounder, sole, haddock, swordfish and bluefish, as well as shellfish including clams, mussels, oysters, fresh crab meat, fresh lobster meat and crab cakes. It also sells live lobsters ranging from 1 pound to more than 6 pounds, and specialty items such as seafood paté, marinades, homemade chowders and cocktail sauces.

All for One

Having six business owners working this closely together isn't without its challenges, however, and the folks at Ring Bros. would be the first to admit this. "They are all business owners, and business owners almost by definition, have strong ideas — that's why they're business owners," notes Fallon. "There's always going to be situations where all parties are not in agreement about something."

To minimize this, the owners have quarterly meetings to discuss operations and address any differences before they become an issue. This continual dialogue also fosters a spirit of innovation among the owners, and when a good idea comes along, they typically all get behind it, explains Fallon, noting the group's penchant for being "very supportive to trying new things. This is very important, because a lot of businesses out there get to where they want to be, and then it's just cruise control. They don't change a thing. But if you don't innovate every day, you get stale, and we try to innovate all the time."

Ring's Renaissance Man

Ring Bros. general manager Don Fallon is truly a renaissance man. He's the store's retail technology guru, its resident chef, marketing maven, sustainability soldier — and a part-time magician.

And while his sleight of hand is reserved for children's parties, Fallon still performs magic inside the store. Perhaps his greatest trick is helping the various businesses that make up the store — and their owners — work together seamlessly. "Don is really the center of the operation," says Ed Ring, owner of Ring Bros., which, in addition to being the name of the store is in operational terms the business consisting of its grocery and dairy departments. "Don's job basically is to keep it all even, whether it's putting together a promotional strategy or selecting ingredients for a cooking demo."

Fallon's latest IT adventure has been redesigning the store's website, a task which is still in progress. "When I first started, the site was small and simple, and over time we expanded it by adding things like all the events and recipe pages, and eventually there were way too many," he says. "And the blog is now gone, since we use Facebook to communicate regularly with our shoppers. We try to put something up on Facebook every day to keep people interested in what we are doing rather than just promoting products. We've also gotten good responses from our Tuesday Trivia posts. And updates on Facebook are automatically fed to our Twitter account. I also handle the Foursquare integration to our loyalty program."

Last fall, Fallon installed new point-of-sale software and hardware while adding two lanes to the front end to handle the store's growth. Not only was he able to handle the installation in just one day, but his customers are also amazed by how fast the lines move since the deployment. Operation of the new system is smooth, even on the store's busiest days.

Ever the showman, Fallon says the best part of his job is when he gets to exhibit his cooking prowess during weekend cooking demonstrations and weekly classes, during which he teaches both adults and kids how to prepare a variety of dishes.

To highlight these demos, Ring Bros. installed a 50-inch flat-screen TV over the cooking demo area, and six 42-inch flat-screens throughout the store. During one of Fallon's cooking demos, one camera points down at the stove, as on TV cooking shows, and the image is displayed on the screen behind him. Another camera shoots him from a side angle, and this video is broadcast to the six other TVs installed throughout the store.

"Shoppers may be over on the opposite end of the store, where you previously couldn't really see or hear anything that's going on at the demo center," says Fallon. "Now, with the TVs, they'll look up and see and hear what's happening, and it draws them over."