Never Give Up
You wouldn't have bet the farm on Ruth Fertel in 1965. A
divorced mom with a degree in chemistry and physics, she wasn't
exactly a prime candidate for building an empire of upscale
steakhouses.
Luckily, Fertel didn't realize her apparent limitations.
"From the very first day, failure just didn't even enter
my mind," says Fertel, 70, who now presides over 59 Ruth's
Chris Steak Houses worldwide. Last year, sales at the Metairie,
Louisiana-based company reached $176 million; this year, Fertel is
forecasting sales of $205 million. Not a bad day's work for a
woman who has successfully weathered skepticism, food fads, growing
pains, natural disasters and every other standard-issue
entrepreneurial challenge for more than 30 years.
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Fertel bought New Orleans' Chris Steak House from the
original "Mr. Chris" in 1965. "I had two teenage
sons who needed to go to college,'' she says. "I was
working as a lab technician at Tulane University, and I needed to
make more money." Fertel was skimming the classifieds when she
came across an ad offering the locally known Chris Steak House for
sale. "I thought `A steak house?' " she recalls,
" `I can do that.' " So she mortgaged her home and
used the $18,000 to buy the business.
Fertel worked hard. "I thought employees would respect me
more if I worked right alongside them, so I did," she says.
"The hours were terrible, but customers saw how hard I was
working, and they wanted me to succeed."
But it wasn't just hard work that clinched Fertel's
success. She had a knack for turning misfortune into good fortune.
"A few months after I bought the restaurant, Hurricane Betsy
came through New Orleans," Fertel recalls. "We had no
electricity for a week, and I had a cooler full of steaks that
would only last three or four days."
Instead of letting the food spoil, Fertel cooked up meals for
the disaster workers and the disaster victims in a neighboring
community. "Everyone was appreciative," says Fertel.
"And many of them became loyal customers."
Ten years later, the restaurant burned down. "I called the
bank crying, and it just so happened that a man who did
construction was in the bank at the time I called," says
Fertel. "He said he could get my new location open in a
week--and he did."
The upshot? "The new restaurant had 160 seats, compared
with 60 seats at the [old] place. People who were discouraged by
our two-hour wait suddenly started showing up," Fertel says.
"Business boomed again."
This, despite the fact Fertel had to scrap the restaurant's
well-known name because her purchase agreement stipulated she could
only call it "Chris Steak House" at the original
location. The unusual new name, "Ruth's Chris Steak
House," has been a blessing. "It's so
recognizable," Fertel explains.
Ruth's Chris has become synonymous nationwide with gracious
dining, impeccable service and tender, hearty beef that makes you
feel well-nourished and invincible. Fertel started franchising
Ruth's Chris in 1976, and now has 35 franchised locations. She
has since stopped issuing new franchises but plans to continue
expanding with company-owned locations.
"I've always tried to operate on the KISS
principle--keep it simple, stupid," says Fertel. "The key
is focus," even when that means ignoring froufrou food and
dishing up meat and potatoes. And even when it means staring bad
luck in the eye until, finally, it blinks.