Fate and an errant driver nearly closed the doors of Perkins Pickles last year.
Tom Perkins, owner of
Perkins Pickles, grew his slow food business since he left Chicago for Detroit at the end of the last decade. He opened up his own retail location in Hamtramck, 2635 Caniff, early last year. A few months later, a driver suffering from a medical condition crashed into the front of his pickling facility, Perkins says.
That forced Perkins to temporarily shut down his business a few months last year and reorganize. At the time he was working full-time hours as a freelance reporter for The Ann Arbor News covering Ypsilanti and working another full-time job growing Perkins Pickles. The accident and subsequent temporary closure gave Perkins the opportunity to restructure the way he did business that didn’t involve him working 80-100 hour weeks.
"It was good to have a little break and restructure the company," Perkins says.
He moved his retail sales to
The Rust Belt Market in downtown Ferndale. Perkins is now working with
Henrietta Haus Coffee to renovate a vacant space on Jos Campau on the south end of the city the two businesses will share.
"We hope to be moving in down there in April," Perkins says.
Perkins Pickles currently employs a staff of three people. Perkins choose to stay in Hamtramck because he lives there and it’s more cost-effective to grow a young business from the inner-city suburb.
"Rent is a lot cheaper here than in Midtown," Perkins says. "You get a lot more bank for your buck in Hamtramck."
Source: Tom Perkins, owner of Perkins Pickles
Writer: Jon Zemke
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