Of "Fish" & Cheesesteaks - The Value Of A Winning Recipe In Business!

"Fish" died last week.

It was over 30 years ago that Mr. Vigoda was rumored to have met his maker when People magazine reported his demise in 1982. A star of sitcoms, stage, and movies like The Godfather - honest Abe was one of those characters we all felt we knew personally. Ironically, this was so much so that we all believed he was dead when he wasn't.

Let's see, 1982 would have been my junior year in college. At the time, I was the president of a fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha at Lycoming College in Williamsport PA. This esteemed position allowed me to visit Dean Wozniak on Monday mornings to dispel any belief that the administration had about the rumored antics that took place over the past weekend. I became pretty good at it but tired as it was every Monday that I had to amble to his office. I quit the fraternity and moved out.

I was a typical college student, did ok in class, stayed up late, slept later. Almost daily I would visit a place, Huggie's Hoagies, where I would chow down on one of the proprietors cheesesteaks. Huggie's opened at 2 pm so the typical lunch crowd wasn't needed and closed at 2 am the next day so the night crowd could get its fill. "Huggie" was a 350-pound man who looked like Meatloaf with a 357 Magnum on his hip.

Williamsport wasn't the nicest of places to go to college. After a meteoric rise due to the industry that made aircraft parts during WW2, the town crashed to the ground after the war. All that was good was flushed down the toilet of mediocrity in an instant and never fully revitalized.

These are restored homes on Millionaire's Row in Williamsport.

Huggie was a real entrepreneur. He would tell me about the importance of using quality ingredients like what kind of steak and where to get it. Also, the perfect rolls and best cheese to use and on and on. I would stare at the gun and wonder why a man so big would ever need one. He was proud of it and reminded me often that it was his "right" to carry.

One day I was short of cash and Huggie said I could cash a check with him. I started writing $10 checks every couple of days. If the check got returned, he collected a $5 returned check fee. Wow, 50% for his inconvenience and my convenience, there were no ATM's at the time. My mom handled my checking account for me as I was young and dumb. She called me one day to ask what Huggie's Hoagies was and to find out if I was still on the meal plan. I confirmed I was and that Huggie was teaching me about business.

Thus, began my marketing career.

So here it is 30 years later, and Abe is gone. I did some research on Huggie and could not find him or remember his last name which likely made the search that much more difficult.

What is important is what I learned from Huggie and his gun.

Quality is paramount in whatever you do. Whether it is making a cheesesteak, offering technology or building homes, doing it right is important. Honest effort, quality ingredients, and tools make a difference. If you provide quality by definition, you create value and convenience, for which you should get paid.

For me, all I learned from the gun was that I thought that he didn't need one.

Funny, I still don't believe we need guns in the massive numbers that they exist today. Having controls like we do for driving cars, walking our dogs, smoking and consuming alcohol seem reasonable to me.

By the way here is the recipe for Chris' version of a Huggie's Hoagies cheese-steak.

Rib eye steak, semi-frozen so you can slice it thin.

A nice soft sub, hoagie or grinder roll

Lettuce

Raw onions

Tomatoes 

Salt

Pepper

Mayonnaise

Sharp Provolone cheese

Parmesan cheese

Cook the steak in a pan and break it apart, leave just a little pink. Add salt and pepper. Meanwhile toast the split roll in the oven. Add a couple of slices of the cheese to the beef and melt. Add the meat and cheese mixture to the toasted roll. Layer on a couple more slices of provolone and put back in the oven and melt again. Add the mayonnaise lettuce, onions, tomato, parmesan and enjoy.

My Best,