The Skole Family Celebrates Forty Years

Allan Skole had operated the food concessions at Twin Hills Country Club, where he managed banquets. But he always had wanted his own business When he and his wife, Anita, decided to start a banquet facility on Shoemaker Lane in Agawam, it was a new concept. Not just to them, and to Agawam, and to the restaurant industry, but to the financial community as well. He was refused financing by a half-dozen banks. "He finally found a bank that would accept the financing," said Linda Skole, his daughter and president of Chez Josef, "if he and his family would invest their savings in the bank. So, they all chipped in to help my father, and they all got their money back." When the business started, Linda Skole's late brother joined his parents and eventually, Linda joined the business, although it was not new to her. She had worked there earlier. "I started at the age of twelve, before there were any labor laws," she notes with a laugh. She continued working through high school and college. "I worked my way through the ranks." After graduating from UMass and working at several other properties, she joined the family business. Chez Today Initially Chez Josef had just the Grand Ballroom which seats about 1,200 people. With the addition of the Tivoli Room with a maximum capacity of 350, the facility has grown to 50,000 square feet. It is one of the top 100 food establishments in the nation. The facility's management team has been with Linda for 25 years or more and the chef has been with Chez Josef since the day it opened. "He started with my father and worked his way up through the ranks," said Skole, "and now he is the executive chef." She makes the point that all her staff are "very loyal". Chez Josef serves western Massachusetts and into Connecticut as far south as Simsbury, Manchester and Middletown, in addition to parties from Boston and New York. Thus far in 2008, they have managed more than 500 events, and those have been a varied lot. "We do weddings, a lot of corporate including employee recognition and awards programs fundraisers, non-profits, proms and bar mitzvahs," said Skole. And some of them are unique and reflect the diversity of contemporary society. "We have had all vegetarian weddings, specialty foods for a family from Africa and traditional Russian weddings," said Skole. "One wedding was for a Chinese family with more than 600 guests, and we did all Asian food, including marinated jelly fish." Family Business Chez Josef is a family-owned and managed business and, from its longevity, Linda Skole has some observations about making such an operation successful. "I think it's important to have expectations regarding each partner's, each family member's responsibilities," said Skole, "and to respect those. It's very easy in a family business for one person to give directions to an employee and then the employee gets different information from someone else. So if you keep the responsibilities separate it makes it easier for the employee to know who to go to." Skole notes that while 40 years ago Chez Josef was a small operation, as it grew they brought in a management consultant because they needed to change the work environment to a more structured organizational flow which allowed the managers to make more decisions instead of always turning to the family members. For Skole, in her role as president, she describes her day as "multi-tasking" which includes helping with sales, managing the dining rooms, and the financials and the budgeting. And she likes what she does because, "every day is different," said Skole. She notes that Chez Josef is a "very hands-on business." Just as it was 40 years ago. RSM