Speaker 1: Pushkin Hey everyone. In honor of Small Business Week, I
Speaker 1: sat down with Ben Walter, the CEO of Chase for Business.
Speaker 1: He's also the host of the Unshakables podcast, where small
Speaker 1: business owners share the defining moments that tested them and
Speaker 1: how they found a way through at a moment when
Speaker 1: so much can feel uncertain. We talked about those comforting
Speaker 1: places that hold steady in a sea of change. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's a neighborhood market or a family run restaurant, somewhere
Speaker 1: that feels familiar and keeps you coming back year after year.
Speaker 1: I find it fascinating how local spots like these seem
Speaker 1: to carry the history of a neighbor with them, even
Speaker 1: as the neighborhood itself changes. Recently, Ben sat down with
Speaker 1: the family behind Borgottis, Ravioli and egg Noodle for his podcast,
Speaker 1: It's a family run pasta shop that's been on Arthur
Speaker 1: Avenue in the Bronx for nearly a century. Arthur Avenue,
Speaker 1: known as the Boroughs Little Italy, has long been a
Speaker 1: hub for Italian American businesses and culture, But like many
Speaker 1: neighborhoods in New York and beyond, it's constantly evolving. As
Speaker 1: longtime residents move out and new communities move in. I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to Ben about how a place like
Speaker 1: Borgottis doesn't just survive, but stays true to itself, how
Speaker 1: it maintains its character over time, what it holds on too,
Speaker 1: and where and when it's willing to adapt. I hope
Speaker 1: this conversation gets you thinking about the special places in
Speaker 1: your community, the change they've outlasted, and the stories they carry. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's my conversation with Ben.
Speaker 2: When you meet a business like Borgoeis, you really get
Speaker 2: a sense of a business that has this larger purpose,
Speaker 2: both in terms of the role that it has played
Speaker 2: in the family and the role that it's played in
Speaker 2: its community. I think it represents sort of a constant
Speaker 2: in a sea of change. You know, there are families
Speaker 2: who've been getting their holiday meal from Borgatti's for you know,
Speaker 2: over fifty years. You have people who remember eating that
Speaker 2: at you know, at Christmas at their grandmothers fifty years ago,
Speaker 2: who are still serving the same meal today. And in
Speaker 2: a world that feels topsy turvy and you know, changing
Speaker 2: faster than ever, I think that brings a source of
Speaker 2: comfort to many.
Speaker 1: There's a reason places like Burgottis can feel so emotionally grounding.
Speaker 1: Familiar environments contribute to our sense of stability. They remind
Speaker 1: us who we are and where we come from. That
Speaker 1: can be especially powerful during moments of uncertainty, when our
Speaker 1: brain is looking for cues that the world is still
Speaker 1: somewhat predictable. A beloved community business can become one of
Speaker 1: those stabilizing cues. What elements have endured at borgottis over time,
Speaker 1: So whether it's recipes or processes or rituals with customers.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's absolutely still the original recipes from I
Speaker 2: guess the fourth generation's great great grandmother. They still serve
Speaker 2: many of the original families as customers that they did
Speaker 2: all those years ago, and they've maintained their absolute commitment
Speaker 2: to quality. They don't cheap out on the ingredients, they
Speaker 2: don't short circuit the process. They make them the way
Speaker 2: that they were always made, with a focus on really
Speaker 2: quality product to the customer.
Speaker 1: It takes a lot of effort to sustain, like you said,
Speaker 1: the quality of a business over time, to make sure
Speaker 1: you're not skimping when it comes to high quality ingredients
Speaker 1: that you are allowing certain tried and tested processes to
Speaker 1: remain in place, so a lot of investment involved in
Speaker 1: keeping an establishment like Burgotti's the same over time. What
Speaker 1: do you think are some of the biggest threats to
Speaker 1: businesses like Borgotti's right now?
Speaker 2: Funny enough, the number one threat they as a business
Speaker 2: haven't faced, but I see clients face it all the
Speaker 2: time is the threat that no one in the business
Speaker 2: wants to keep going. Very often it was immigrant families
Speaker 2: who started the business, and by the third generation, they're
Speaker 2: just interested in a different life. So they are fortunate
Speaker 2: to have a really tight knit family that has resisted that.
Speaker 2: Number two is neighborhoods do shift. While they have been
Speaker 2: able to compensate for it through their online sales, that
Speaker 2: has been an issue so that, you know, many of
Speaker 2: the original Italian American families have moved out of Little
Speaker 2: Italy in the Bronx, so that the character of the
Speaker 2: neighborhood has changed. And then finally, there's technology you can
Speaker 2: get now decent quality ravioli that is high mass manufactured
Speaker 2: that probably wasn't available when they started their shop, you know,
Speaker 2: back in nineteen thirty five. Now I still think they
Speaker 2: serve a superior product and I've had it. It's delicious
Speaker 2: and it's handmade and it's artisanal, and there is a
Speaker 2: desire for that. So they've been able to to lean
Speaker 2: into that angle of it. But like any business, you know,
Speaker 2: they're facing it. Whether it's a changing character of the neighborhood,
Speaker 2: a changing character of the technological background, a changing narrative
Speaker 2: of customer taste. You know, the world changes.
Speaker 1: One of the hardest parts of adapting to change is
Speaker 1: knowing what to keep as is and what to improve.
Speaker 1: Flexibility means staying aligned to your deeper values while updating
Speaker 1: your strategy as circumstances shift. For a small business owner,
Speaker 1: that might mean holding on to the quality, care, or
Speaker 1: purpose that drew customers in in the first place, while
Speaker 1: also being open to new tools, new customers, and new
Speaker 1: ways of reaching them. That balance between continuity and change
Speaker 1: is often what resilience looks like. What do you think
Speaker 1: are some of the magic ingredients that help a business
Speaker 1: like the stick around for so long.
Speaker 2: The number one is adaptability. It's a willingness to change,
Speaker 2: but the ones who adapt are the ones who thrive.
Speaker 2: I would say second is the absolute, unrelenting grit and
Speaker 2: dedication of the owners. Yeah, it's force of will. I
Speaker 2: mean these are businesses that have made it through COVID,
Speaker 2: through the Great Recession, through all of these things, through
Speaker 2: the Great Depression. In this case, that's frankly been probably
Speaker 2: the most common trait of the people we've had on
Speaker 2: our show, and Borgatt's itself is a great example. Their
Speaker 2: key machine broke down at the most important time of
Speaker 2: year and they had to figure out what to do.
Speaker 2: And that's what small business owners do every day, is
Speaker 2: they just find a way through.
Speaker 1: How did they solve for this problem of the machine
Speaker 1: breaking down.
Speaker 2: They managed to get it fixed in time, but in
Speaker 2: the meantime they were doing an awful lot of stuff
Speaker 2: by hand. You'll have to listen to the episode to
Speaker 2: get the full details.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we talked about adaptability, we talked about grit,
Speaker 1: any other traits that you see across companies that somehow
Speaker 1: find ways to endure.
Speaker 2: The common thing is a commitment to something larger than
Speaker 2: just this year's profit. If you were to talk to
Speaker 2: any of the small businesses we have met that have
Speaker 2: lasted for years and you ask them what the purpose
Speaker 2: of their business is, none of them would talk about
Speaker 2: to make money. None of them would talk about their financials.
Speaker 2: They would all talk about the product or service that
Speaker 2: they provide, the impact that has on the lives of
Speaker 2: their customers and their communities. All of them and their
Speaker 2: brands are all anchored in that. You cannot make a
Speaker 2: business work without the dollars and cents, but it will
Speaker 2: not last on dollars and cents only. So whether it's
Speaker 2: mission driven, you know, we have businesses who are trying
Speaker 2: to solve an environmental problem, or an energy problem, or
Speaker 2: a health problem, or businesses like this that are trying
Speaker 2: to sort of be part of the fabric of the community.
Speaker 2: The ones who last are very rarely focused on this
Speaker 2: quarter or even this year beyond sort of the near
Speaker 2: term need to run the business. They're running something that
Speaker 2: has a higher purpose, and that higher purpose is very personal.
Speaker 2: So in the case of Borgatis, it's being part of
Speaker 2: the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to talk a bit about how a
Speaker 1: business like Burgottis can contribute to the identity of a community.
Speaker 1: How do businesses like this one contribute to positive change
Speaker 1: or growth.
Speaker 2: I think they do it in a few ways. One
Speaker 2: is they give the neighborhood a sense of place. If
Speaker 2: you think about that neighborhood you grew up in where
Speaker 2: there's that place that you always used to go to
Speaker 2: and it's still there all those years later. That gives
Speaker 2: the place an anchoring and it gives people confidence to
Speaker 2: invest in that area. So that's number one. Number two,
Speaker 2: I would say they support more than just their business.
Speaker 2: So if you look across the country and survey after
Speaker 2: survey reveals this, small business owners are some of the
Speaker 2: most philanthropic people in their local communities. Who sponsors your
Speaker 2: local softball team, it's the local business in the local
Speaker 2: community who wants to have both a business and a
Speaker 2: philanthropic impact at home, and they tend to reinvest directly
Speaker 2: in their community. So small businesses, they don't just sell locally,
Speaker 2: they hire locally. Yeah, and that's a self feeding positive
Speaker 2: loop that helps neighborhoods thrive economically.
Speaker 1: What then, is describing goes beyond economics. Relationships are what
Speaker 1: transformed a collection of streets and buildings into a neighborhood,
Speaker 1: and small businesses are where these relationships flourish, where people
Speaker 1: go to gather and to build trusted friendships. Restaurants like
Speaker 1: Borgatti's help create a feeling that a place is not
Speaker 1: simply where you live, but where you belong. What do
Speaker 1: you think communities lose when these kinds of small businesses disappear,
Speaker 1: and what role do you think customers community members can
Speaker 1: play in helping them survive.
Speaker 2: When neighborhoods lose their small businesses, they lose their character.
Speaker 2: It's that simple. And that doesn't just mean retail stores,
Speaker 2: by the way. It can be the local law and
Speaker 2: care shop, it can be the local doctor. Those businesses
Speaker 2: know their local communities in a way that others can't.
Speaker 2: They're able to respond to those communities in ways that
Speaker 2: others can't. And when you lose that, you don't just
Speaker 2: lose the character, you lose the permanence. There's so much
Speaker 2: transience in the world today. A little bit of permanence
Speaker 2: is a healthy counterbalance.
Speaker 1: Couldn't agree more. It's definitely a stabilizing force. And it's
Speaker 1: a long term relationship builder, you know it is.
Speaker 2: I mean, I live in a small town outside New
Speaker 2: York City. I know the dry cleaner personally, I walk in,
Speaker 2: I hander my stuff. She knows that I don't like
Speaker 2: starch on my shirts, you know, And that's comforting. And
Speaker 2: these local communities drive social connection in a way that
Speaker 2: goes beyond just friends and family.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we had the former US Surge in General on
Speaker 1: a slight change of plans who talked about the loneliness
Speaker 1: epidemic that we're all living through. And there's some really
Speaker 1: compelling research from the happiness literature showing that it is
Speaker 1: these small daily interactions with people in our community, not
Speaker 1: even with our closest friends or our family, that really
Speaker 1: help boost our sense of belonging. So the conversation with
Speaker 1: the barista, the small interaction you might have at the
Speaker 1: laundromat like you were describing, then these are part of
Speaker 1: the fabric of our everyday lives and they really do
Speaker 1: have a profound impact on our sets of well being
Speaker 1: and social lives.
Speaker 2: They do. And you also asked what can customers do.
Speaker 2: Customers can support their local small businesses.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, our one of the little local supermarkets
Speaker 1: was at risk of shutting down. And you do see
Speaker 1: communities rally, whether it's to keep a local movie theater alive,
Speaker 1: to keep a small grocery store alive. It's actually a
Speaker 1: very uplifting thing when you see people say, you know what,
Speaker 1: we are not willing to let this particular establishment go.
Speaker 1: We'll do what it takes and it's petitions. It's making
Speaker 1: sure that they're prioritizing getting their groceries from the small grocery,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: And you know sometimes sometimes that does come at a
Speaker 2: bit of a price premium, but you give what you
Speaker 2: pay for.
Speaker 1: If someone's thinking, you know, I want to I want
Speaker 1: to start something from scratch and I want it to
Speaker 1: endure for decades to come, what advice would you give
Speaker 1: to them?
Speaker 2: I would say, first of all, really do your research
Speaker 2: on what you're going to do and why. Know why
Speaker 2: you'll be good at it, know why it's important, and
Speaker 2: why you have that passion for it. It very rarely
Speaker 2: works if that passion is I want to make a buck,
Speaker 2: and you need to have a really deep understanding of
Speaker 2: what the purpose of that business is and why you
Speaker 2: think you can achieve that purpose. If you have those
Speaker 2: two things and the grit to drive through my experiences,
Speaker 2: most places make it.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for listening to my conversation with Ben Walter,
Speaker 1: the CEO of Chase for Business and host of The
Speaker 1: Unshakables podcast. You can check out Ben's episode of The
Speaker 1: Unshakables featuring Borgatti's and an episode we recorded last year.
Speaker 1: For a slight change of Plans when I talked to
Speaker 1: Ben about staying resilient in the workplace. We'll link to
Speaker 1: both episodes in the show notes, and we'll be back
Speaker 1: next week with another episode of A Slight Change of Plans.
Speaker 1: I'll see you then. A Slight Change of Plans is created, written,
Speaker 1: and executive produced by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change
Speaker 1: Family includes our showrunner Alexandra Garratin, our editor Daphne Chen,
Speaker 1: our lead producer Megan Lubin, our associate producer Sonia Gerwit,
Speaker 1: and our sound engineer Erica Huang. Louis Scara wrote our
Speaker 1: delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals.
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: so big thanks to everyone there, and of course a
Speaker 1: very special thanks to genuine