At this week’s lunch meeting, Ann Arbor Rotarians filled and were filled in two full dining rooms at Zingerman’s Road House. Our lunch included mouth-watering traditional Road House favorites such as creamy mac ’n cheese, sweet potato fries with spicy mayo, and fried chicken. The amazing, superbly motivated, and trained Zingerman’s wait staff kept us all supplied with drinks and magically removed finished plates so Rotarian conversations continued uninterrupted, undiminished, and unabated.
President Joyce rang the bell to start this extra special meeting. Kathy Waugh led us in an a cappella America the Beautiful. A special shout-out to Curt Waugh who brought extensive an microphone and speaker system to the meeting so that everyone could hear the proceedings with ease. President Joyce welcomed members and guests including our District Governor, Sharna Hatcher, and Rotary Peace Fellow from Ghana, Wisdom Addo. President Joyce recognized Club member birthdays, and also thanked speaker-host, Ari Weinzweig, for his support of many Ann Arbor organizations including the African American Cultural and Historical Museum of Washtenaw County. On your next visit, be sure to note two pieces of art on Zing’s walls that celebrate Blacks in Culinary History.
Kathy Waugh came back to the microphone to announce that Roy More is nominated to be our President-Elect for a one-year term beginning July 2025. Elections will be held on Dec. 4 at our Annual Meeting.
Past President, Joanne Pierson, currently our Club’s Director of Youth Development, urged Rotarians and friends to become Rotary Readers volunteers. Citing a recent Ann Arbor Observer article about the dearth of volunteers, Pierson noted that before Covid, our Club helped the Rotary Readers program with 20 volunteers. Currently, only two of our members have volunteered. Please consider this your personal invitation to step up by contacting Jim Egerdal at tutors@a2rotary.org.
Ari Weinzweig: an Ann Arbor icon
Seated side-by-side at a high-top table between the two dining rooms, club member Richard Sheridan introduced his long-time friend, co-founder, inspiring leader, and long time co-owner, Ari Weinzwieg. Rich posed to Ari a number of questions in a free-ranging Q and A format.
Ari began his talk by thanking Rich and giving a warm hello to everyone at the luncheon. Ari said that he knew most everyone by face if not by name, and noted that, “in challenging times, it is good to be around community, kindness and people who care.”
Ari’s life story—newly set into words in a hot-off-the-presses chapbook, “Life Lessons I Learned from Being A Line Cook”—includes his being a history major from Chicago who studied Russian history and anarchy. He came to Ann Arbor and Michigan because he’d heard we had the very best collection in the country of books in his areas of interest. Ari was even a Vets cab driver. After working as a line cook at Maude’s Restaurant for several years, he quit. Two days after quitting, Maude’s colleague and friend Paul Saginaw asked if Ari was interested in starting a new venture in a building near Kerrytown about to come on the market.
Zingerman’s began right where it is now, with Ari and Paul. Now it numbers more than 700 employees, with $81M in sales. Rich likened Ari to the “Steve Jobs of our community,” where the concept that “different might actually work,” grew into “you CAN do things differently.”
Not everything involved with creating and running Zingerman’s is about being different. Ari recognized his commonality with Rich and with many other business organization by sharing that he too worries about making payroll and long-term sustainability. “The public is often presented with only the glamour or the dramatically awful, while 99% of running a business is in the middle of those extremes.” Ari also noted that belief cycles are learned. And negative beliefs tend to reward negative actions while positive beliefs empower positive action.
Ari spoke about the what he calls the “park bench conversation,” a hard and thoughtful conversation he had with Paul to answer the questions “in 10 years, what are we doing? What’s next?” Their original design of getting to greatness via great food and great service was being achieved. And the subsequent answers were to have Zingerman’s help cultivate the “terroir,” or a sense of place, in this community. Ari noted that organizations (like Rotary and Zingerman’s) grow communities, and communities are their terroir, the nurturing and character-creating soils which mark and make them.
It’s in Ari’s personal passion to write, to teach, and to infuse positivity into the Zingerman’s still-growing organization that he sees his best self. He adheres to the servant-leader model which uses training, feedback, and appreciation to grow the Zingerman’s organization, and, in return, to add something precious to the terroir which is Ann Arbor. He noted that leadership is hard work (and explained that it sometimes even includes management by pouring water for guests at the Road House), but when done well, the work rewards by changing the lives of Zingerman’s employees and customers in a positive way. That’s the payoff.
When asked what Zingerman’s will be in 10 years, Ari noted that they are currently living and abiding by a vision statement that takes them to 2032. Included in this is a cutting-edge “Perpetual Purpose Trust,” where he and Paul are, over a period of many years, will give the Zingerman’s “brand”—aka “the intellectual property”—to the business.
Ari closed by reaffirming that he considers himself a “servant leader,” very much in the spirit of JFK’s “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” He noted that treating everyone with dignity was his paramount goal. For our terroir, our country, and for us as individuals, persistently and pointedly treating everyone with dignity was itself a revolutionary act. Brought happy tears to my eyes and the eyes of many of my friends in Rotary.
President Joyce thanked Ari and Rich, reminded all that there will be no meeting next week, and wished a Happy Thanksgiving to us all.
For more information:
