Irrational Persistence. Zilko Dave

industrial.

      Jack remembers the city council meeting in which he tried to do just that: “Some of the council members were against the zoning change, saying that the highest and best use for this space was still commercial, not industrial. So I told them I’d set up a card table just inside the front entrance, that I’d call it a ‘store,’ and promised to sell a pint of salsa to any member of the public who walked in for $2.50.” This was good enough for the council, and the zoning change was approved.

      Although we were located 15 miles apart and were not to meet each other for another five years, both my American Connoisseur Gourmet Foods/The Mucky Duck Mustard Company and Jack and Annette’s Garden Fresh Gourmet were both now operating out of 3,000-square-foot production facilities.

      As I was getting up at 5:30 a.m. to go in and break eggs for that day’s production, Annette would arrive at the former video store an hour earlier than that to move all the packaging materials from the production floor out to the parking lot, just so they’d have the room to produce Garden Fresh Salsa.

      When it rained or snowed, which happens often in Detroit, Annette would run out to the lot and cover everything with tarps.

      This was after she’d label the salsa cups the previous evening, at home, by hand. She says, “I’d do about three cases of empty containers, and that would get us through the next day’s production.”