Robicelli's

We’re done with all our Thansgiving leftovers and have cracked open the eggnog, we’ve put carols on the stereo and put up our tree, and our Small Business Saturday sale has come and gone. This can only mean one thing……

IT’S CYBER MONDAY!!!!

Also our holiday flavors are back. This can only mean TWO things, then!

I know today we all love shopping in our underpants, but post-Sandy we also realize how important it is to support NYC based businesses rather than simply hand all our money right over to Amazon, just so they can run off and send that money right over to China.

image: the epoch times

As strong and resilient as New York City is, we’re in a lot of trouble right now. Many hit hardest by Sandy were not even eligible for flood insurance post-Katrina, and the ones who did manage to obtain it are having their claims denied for various reasons. Insurers are also denying business interruption claims in Manhattan, claiming the blackout wasn’t the result of a hurricane but rather “flooding”, meaning they will not pay anything.  FEMA only offers businesses loans to recover, which no one wants to take for fear they won’t be able to pay them back if our local economy doesn’t rebound and our businesses fail regardless of aid packages. 

The amount of money it costs to keep a business afloat in NYC in unconscionable- even a single weekend of lost revenue can mean the difference between staying open or shutting your doors forever. The reality of post-Sandy New York is that there are literally tens of thousands of businesses on the verge of closing forever. And if those business close, they will take hundreds of thousands of jobs with them. 

This is not what you want to hear about on Cyber Monday. You want to spend 30 minutes on the internet and get all your holiday shopping done.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could do something to help New York City rebuild, to keep Americans from losing their jobs, to keep fellow citizens from going bankrupt after the worst natural disaster in our city’s history, instead of spending all of your holiday cash at companies who send our money overseas?

WELL MAYBE WE FIGURED OUT A WAY TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN.

A few weeks ago, I went out for egg creams with some associates where we discussed how people from all over America wanted to find a way to help in a way they were sure the money actually got to the people who needed it. We talked about how it would be great if there was a website like Amazon where you could shop for anything, but the goods wouldn’t come from a giant warehouse in the middle of nowhere -they would come from small businesses and manufacturers right here in New York City, made by American hands.

Ladies and gentlemen, on this Cyber Monday I am proud to present this link to the official Made In NYC Online Shopping Portal! On the page you are about to view, you will find gifts for everyone you know: food, clothing, jewelry, home decor, cosmetics and lotions, gadgets, gizmos- and all of it made right here in New York City! We’re not talking the mass produced stuff you’ll find in any megamart- you’ll find bespoke, unique pieces that many people have never seen the likes of before, things that will be cherished and remembered for years to come. Do your shopping with NYC this year, and you’ll be doing a lot more than just giving everyone you know the most original gifts on earth- you’ll be helping your neighbor, helping save jobs. Is there anything that exemplifies the holiday spirit more than that?

Of course, we’re featured on the site (full disclosure as we had a hand in creating it).  Not only are the orders you guys have been placing with us helping us rebound, but we’re even hoping that if we get busy enough with our new online store that we’ll be able to bring on another employee. Straight from the horses mouth- the money you spend with us and other small businesses helps us more than anything else.

Being that it’s Cyber Monday, you all want more than just shopping from your computer when you’re technically supposed to be working- you also want big savings. Well, we’re a small business and can’t really afford to offer the steep discounts the big guys do. But in the interest of getting you to the Made In NYC site to poke around: Enter Promocode “CyberMonday” at checkout today only, and you’ll get 20% off EVERYTHING. Brownies, cakes, hot cocoa- all of it is on sale (and delicious!), and we can ship your gifts anywhere you want in the continental United States (including your house if you feel like buying a gift for yourself as well). Then buy from the some of the many other independent fashion designers, mom & pop food companies and more- there’s some amazing stuff on this site, and something for everyone!

Alas, cupcakes are not in our webstore, but if you’re in NYC you should go out and snag them because, well, like I said: holiday flavors are starting to come back, starting with Hot Buttered Rum. And also fall flavors are dying a slow death, with the Pumpkin Caramel making it’s final appearance this week til next year. Go tell it you love it before it’s too late.

Pumpkin Caramel: Pumpkin cake, salted caramel buttercream, candied pumpkin seeds

Hot Butter Rum: Rum butterscotch soaked cake, hot buttered rum buttercream and drizzle

Hazelnut Kiss: Chocolate hazelnut cake, Nutella buttercream, roasted hazelnuts

Cookies & Cream: Chocolate cake, mascarpone and crushed cookie buttercream, chopped chocolate cookies

Big week over here! Tuesday is Toby’s fourth birthday!

*sniff*

And as if it wasn’t hard enough reflecting on the the fact that I’ve gone from watching my baby grow from a tiny little McNugget shaped thing inside my belly to an adorable little boy with boundless creativity, an endless imagination and a mouth that never ever stops (just like his mommy), Wednesday I turn 32.

Thirty-two. My twenties ended two years ago, and now I am fully, totally, completely ensconced “In my thirties”.

*sniff sniff”

There’s a billion and a half reasons WHY I love being in my 30s (many of which I’m going to post about on Wednesday), but I’m not going to lie and say the magic combination of my baby growing up, my birthday, and finding a few more grey hairs on Matt’s head making me ever more aware that one day I will wake up and be married to Santa Claus is an altogether pleasant one.

Fortunately, after a string of horrible birthdays, 32 is going to be the best birthday ever. I know that’s a huge sweeping statement to make that would normally fall short, but considering that my 31st was spent with Matt in the hospital, and my 30th was spent at my grandmother’s wake, it honestly wouldn’t take much. But lest we forget, I am married to the absolute greatest man in the entire freaking world, because…….

After almost ten years of menu ogling, internet stalking, and doodling “Mrs. Allison Dufrense”, Matt is taking me out for a child-free night and I am finally going to eat at my #1 restaurant crush WD-50! No more “saving it for a special occasion” or making excuses- Wylie Dufrense is my hero, and Wednesday at 7pm, I am finally going to be eating his food- like THIS:

photo courtesy of Serious Eats NY

Know what that is? NEITHER DO I! But I know for a fact that it’s probably so delicious that there will be no Tumblr post on Friday, for I will have spontaneously combusted with joy. 

And as a coincidence- we’ve got a brand spanking new cupcake flavor today that could make YOU spontaneously combust with joy! Who feels like potentially exploding today?

Clockwise from front: Key Lime Cheesecake, Mudslide, Banana Cream Pie, Cookies & Cream

NEW! Mudslide: Bailey’s-Kahlua chocolate cake, mascarpone buttercream, Mudslide ganache, cookie crumbs

Key Lime Cheesecake: Graham cake, key lime curd, key lime cheesecake buttercream, graham crumbs, lime zest

Cookies & Cream: Vanilla & chocolate cookie cake, mascarpone buttercream, chocolate cookie crumbs

Banana Cream Pie: Banana cake, vanilla custard, custard buttercream, banana chip, graham crumbs

Click here for a list of Robicelli’s retail locations

Oh man- I really have been half-assing this blog for the past week or two, and I am so freaking bummed about it.  Before the store opened I had a million things to do and I was totally stressed out. Then it actually opened and I had a million and one things. And then, as you know, Matt got sick, and as of a few hours ago he’s been admitted to the hospital with not only a massive kidney infection, but colitis and double pneumonia as well.  It sounds scary, and to be honest I was freaking out for a good long while, but the hospital is the best place in the world for him now, and he’s already starting to joke around and get antsy. (If you want to send well wishes, email matt@robicellis.com, or Tweet him @mattrobicelli)

Photo courtesy of Foodaissance

I’ve gotten a ton of messages offering help, and even though I probably won’t take most of you up on them, they are extremely appreciated.  From the outside this looks bananas, but when you’re a small business owner you honestly get used to this stuff. Seriously, I know lots of people dream about owning their own business, but they never talk about the excruciating parts in the books and those shows on Cooking Channel that make “artisan” food look so glamorous.  When one of my best friends committed suicide three years ago, I had to go to work with a smile on my face for customers.  When my 22 year old cousin was killed in a motorcross accident last year and my whole family was at the funeral, I was baking and making deliveries.  Even when Atticus was in the pediatric ICU a few years ago with a lung infection, I did paperwork while I held my suffering baby, all tangled up in IVs.  

What’s happening right now isn’t really unique- every single one of us has stretches of bad luck, we suffer through them and come out on top. The difference is that when you own a business, you don’t get paid leave from your job, or at least have the comfort of knowing that your job will get done by someone in a worst case scenario.  You may think I’m my own boss, but you’re wrong- every single one of you is my boss.  Every store, every customer, every single person who walks down the street that may potentially buy a cupcake one day or write about us on Yelp- all my boss.  And no matter how stressful it gets, or how many balls I have up in the air, I know that my priority is making all of you happy every day, because honestly that’s what Matt and I live for and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

I don’t mean to shatter the dreams of anyone out there who fantasizes of being an entrepreneur, but I think it is so important to be honest about the fact that it is not just a job, but an entire lifestyle change. I’ve seen peoples marriages and relationships crumble, perfectly amazing women unable to go on a date or socialize because they work all the time, nervous breakdowns, burnouts and bankruptcies. It’s wonderful to be able to survive these things and come out on top, but it doesn’t always happen, and it takes a very special type of person to do it. And that person is completely, utterly, and madly insane.

I made it a point to spend my entire pre-Robicelli’s career in small business so I would one day be able to open my own. I saw many people who were smarter, more experienced, or far richer than I fail in the most spectacular fashion. The universe’s message to me was “Don’t do it”. Yet still I’d move on to the next boutique caterer or next restaurant consulting gig and stand in the middle of bedlam.  Again, “Don’t do it”. But I’ve never been one for listening to authority, even if it is the universe.  Matt and I went out on our own, the stock market promptly crashed, and we lost everything we’d spent years working towards.

“Told you so! Don’t do it! Should have listened!”

Instead of making the smart decision of quitting, we kept going. And here we are- sometimes broke, always struggling, sometimes so stressed and overwhelmed that we wonder if we’ll be able to make it though.  But we always do, and we keep going.  It’s not just because we’re passionate about baking or our mission- it’s because the insanity, challenges and constant problem solving that comes with running a business is the most amazing thing in the world to us, and we’re addicted to it like a drug. The baking part of Robicelli’s takes the least time, and honestly, it feels like a break.

If you want to run a food business, here’s my advice: don’t do it.  Go work in a restaurant and wash dishes, bus tables, answer phones and do every job there is to do no matter how “beneath you” you may think it is. Get a customer service job where you spend hours listening to peoples complaints. Buy a good pair of walking shoes and do cold call door-to-door sales. Every day, you’ll hear that voice in your head that says “don’t do it”. That voice is called reason.

Then, if after hearing it a million times, after learning every good lesson and seeing every argument against it you still want to do it? Well, then you WILL do it. And you will love every single goddamn second of it as much as Matt and I do.

However, there will come weeks like this one where your husband is in the hospital, your sous chef is on vacation, you’ve just opened a store, your apartments floods & you move in with your parents, you have you cancel your son’s birthday trip and don’t even get to see him on his special day, you get 2 hours of sleep every night because you’re covering all the work of three people, and you will want to run away to Aruba and make a living dressing up like Carmen Miranda for tourists. And you will look in the mirror every day at 5am before you go to sleep and go “Allison, you are a stupid, STUPID person”, and you’ll be right. But you’ll be the happiest stupid person in the world.

On a side note, today is my birthday! I’ll be spending the morning in the Jetro Restaurant Supply Warehouse buying Mexican Coke and paper towels- come say hi!

Clockwise from front: Horchata, PB&J, Cookies & Cream, Caramel Macchiato

PS: I was called about Matt being rushed to the hospital towards the beginning of production. Don’t thank me for today’s stuff- thank Rachel Anderson , Monique Henry, and Siobhan Wallace- former interns who have quickly become just about the best thing that’s ever happened to me. After the kids, of course. And Matt. And my InStyler- I really love that thing.

Horchata: Horchata cake, pudding and buttercream with cinnamon sugar rice crispies

PB&J: Vanilla cake, grape jelly, peanut butter buttercream, crushed peanuts

Cookies & Cream: Chocolate cake, cookies & cream buttercream, crushed homemade chocoalte cookies

Caramel Macchiato: Chocolate espresso cake, caramel macchiato buttercream, ganache, salted caramel, crushed chocolate covered espresso beans

Available at:

ROBICELLI’S AT DEKALB MARKET: Flatbush Ave Extension & Willoughby Street, Downtown Brooklyn

BAGEL SCHMAGEL: Third Avenue & 76th Street, Bay Ridge

CUPCAKE STAND: Fifth Avenue & 60th Street, Sunset Park

CRESPELLA: Seventh Avenue & 9th Street, Park Slope

TAZZA CAFES: Henry Street off Atlantic Ave AND Clark Street off Henry, Brooklyn Heights

RADISH: Bedford Ave & N8th, Williamsburg

BATTERY PLACE MARKET: 77 Battery Place, Battery Park City

CAKE SHOP: Ludlow Street btwn Stanton & Rivington, Lower East Side

JOE: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: West 120th btwn Broadway & Amsterdam, Morningside Heights

BROOKLYNEER: 220 West Houston Street, West Village