Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 26, 1992 TAG: 9201280488
SECTION: ECONOMY PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
BISCUIT BUSINESS FEELING THE BITE
Everyone's brushes with this economy are different.Young workers who don't earn enough to afford health insurance. Older people whose dreams of late-in-life luxuries are evaporating.
Tudor's Biscuit World, a six-year fixture of downtown Roanoke, and its small work force is a microcosm of the recession's wide and varied impacts on average people.
Louis Tudor was on the gravy train in 1988.
More than 20 people were working at his Tudor's Biscuit World. It took two people just to handle non-stop telephone orders for the biscuit sandwiches the Church Avenue shop delivers to downtown offices.
Biscuits were flying out of the place so fast, one guy was stationed at the biscuit-maker's elbow just to cut shortening into her flour.
Those were the days. At $1 to $2 a biscuit order and with lots of extras like cheddar fries, they were making 200 deliveries a day and had a big sit-down clientele, too.
His place is doing okay now - he still sells hundreds of biscuits each day - but the downtown market for food is smaller.
Companies that used to order lots of Tudor's breakfasts and lunches have fewer workers now. Orders are down.
"A lot of businesses don't even exist anymore," Tudor said. LancerLot Downtown, a fitness club across the street, shut down. Crestar Bank's operations staff, which was nearby, moved to Richmond. Many employees at nearby Signet Bank were transferred.
Biscuits, plain ones going for only 59 cents, might seem recession-proof. "But the market has shrunk," Tudor said.
He sees caution in what customers order. "You can tell people are watching their pocketbook." His $2 lunch specials are going well. His fried-apple biscuit is $1.04; his fried bologna biscuit with melted cheese is 85 cents.
Tudor's father opened the first tiny Tudor's in Charleston, W.Va., in 1980. "It was about the size of the Texas Tavern," Louis Tudor said.
The chain has grown to 35 Tudor's Biscuit Worlds. All but Louis Tudor's are in West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky.
His father died three years ago. Tudor's mother and brother in Charleston still own about a dozen shops. The rest are franchised. Louis Tudor's Roanoke shop is a far-flung outpost, a pleasant surprise for visiting West Virginians hooked on Tudor biscuits back home.
Tudor, 35, a Certified Public Accountant, opened the Roanoke Tudor's when he married here six years ago. He's become a biscuit-based student of human behavior.
People eat more as the weekend approaches, he said. "People eat when they're happy." They order out when it rains - unless it's a long, well-forecast wet spell, and then they pack their lunches.
Holidays interrupt cash flow, so January is the slowest month, he said. And then, there are always those New Year's resolutions not to eat so much.
Tudor was divorced last year. That alone wouldn't have hurt his business much, he said. Nor would the recession alone. But the double whammy did. Paying for a divorce settlement and child support and dealing with a nervous economy at the same time dealt a financial blow.
His business is off about 35 percent, he said. He's down to a dozen employees.
Most perform several restaurant tasks, depending on the day's needs. Rather than have a full-time grill cook, Tudor's drivers take turns at the grill. "People have to be flexible now," he said.
Some days, Tudor helps make biscuits. He answers the phone most of the time. He rarely leaves the place.
He expects good days to return. "I think it's going to come back," he said. "I think it'll take a year, or a year and a half."
"This is my first recession as an adult," he said. Older business owners have been through lots of them, and he may, too.
A few weeks ago, David Holland, 29, did what a lot of American workers have done. He took a second job.
After putting in an eight-hour day as dispatcher, cook and delivery man at Tudor's, he had about an hour before his nightly cook's shift at Mac & Maggie's restaurant on Electric Road. It all added up to more than 80 hours a week.
Holland's felt the recession's grip since the summer of 1990. "It hit me before I ever heard about it on TV," he said. "It's been pretty rough."
Work slowed at the heating and air-conditioning company where he was working. Holland, one of its newest workers, was let go.
He found full-time work at a Harris-Teeter supermarket but within months, supervisors cut back his hours. He went to Tudor's.
Drivers there earn $4.25 an hour, the minimum wage, but with tips at sometimes $30 a day, Tudor said they can make $8 an hour.
Holland's wife, Julie, 25, is not working. They are paying medical bills from her asthma attacks. They can't afford health insurance, Holland said. "If she had to go in the hospital right now, I don't know how we would make it."
Julie's sister and young nephew have moved into the Hollands' one-bedroom apartment in Southeast Roanoke. The sister has a part-time job, so she helps with expenses.
Holland has a used car and does most repairs himself. Julie needs a car, too.
That's one reason he took a second job - plus his determination to save money again. "In the last two years," he said, "everything's dwindled down to living on whatever I make. I need to build back up my savings."
He and his wife seldom go out to eat now. They grab some fast-food, rent a movie and visit friends instead.
Early in January, Holland had his first Saturday off since summer. His mother won him a ticket to the Redskins-Falcons game in Washington. It was a cold, storm-whipped game. He loved it anyway.
Six days after he started at Mac & Maggie's, he quit Tudor's. He explained a few days later that he'd left after a confrontation with Tudor but now he wanted his job back.
Marie Broady, 65, whips out hundreds of biscuits, cinnamon buns and turnovers every day at Tudor's.
She has a big economic advantage over her younger brethren there: No rent or house payment. She paid off her home years ago.
She feels virtually no symptoms of this recession. "It hasn't bothered me any," she said.
Monday through Thursday, she gets to work at 6:45 a.m. She ends her baking about 12:45 p.m. and goes home.
It suits her fine, she said. "I'm not the type to just sit home and watch soap operas."
She has no car. A friend drives her to work or she catches the bus. Broady had cancer a few years ago. Medicare and some insurance policies cover medical expenses.
She doesn't buy much. "After you've accumulated so much," she said, "you have about everything you need." Her three children buy her a few frills.
So Broady's bills are for utilities, life insurance and food.
She believes her financially secure life offers lessons for younger people. "I budget my money very well," she said. "I've never been a big spender."
It worries her how freely younger workers spend their money. "Young people aren't looking toward the future at all," she said.
Scott Register is only 18, but he's already a recession veteran.
He's a hard worker. He pulled about 80 hours a week until recently - six days a week at Tudor's and six nights a week at Little Caesar's pizza.
"I've always been employed," he said. Beginning at 16, he worked at a yogurt parlor. The last two summers he worked construction.
At Tudor's, he's learned the city streets as a delivery man. Now he's cooking, wrapping orders, helping with kitchen chores and organizing deliveries that stretch two miles across town.
Right now, Register's working 40 hours a week at Tudor's - a leisurely pace for him. His older brother, Tony, worked at Tudor's before he began Navy nuclear submarine training.
Scott Register's already learned about debt. He's trying to bring some old bills under control before May, when he joins the Navy to be an aviation electronics technician.
The 1991 graduate and former cross-country runner at William Byrd High School is still enjoying free housing and about half his meals at home in Vinton.
Until his 19th birthday last week, he was covered under his father's and stepmother's health insurance. Register plans to go without insurance the four months before he goes into the Navy.
A few weeks ago, he bought a 1985 Scirocco. The $72 monthly payments plus gasoline and insurance at $126 a month claim a hefty percentage of his earnings.
He buys his own clothes. Late last year he saved a little money for Christmas gifts for his girlfriend, his family and friends.
But he steered clear of credit cards. "I pay in cash or I do lay-away. I'm not getting myself in any credit card debt right now."
Jennifer Slocum, a 21-year-old part-timer in the Tudor's kitchen, is one of the lucky ones, and she knows it.
She's found a haven from recession: her dad's house.
Shes lives at home. Her father pays for her housing, utilities, college tuition, car, gas and health insurance.
He could feed her like a queen, too. (Her father, a meat broker, has a freezer full of meats. But, Slocum's a vegetarian.)
For all her privileges, Slocum works hard. At 5:30 a.m., she's at Tudor's, getting ready to dispatch biscuit orders all over Roanoke and whipping up gravy, brown beans and cornbread.
Then she student-teaches kindergarten at Fishburn Park Elementary. She rushes from there to classes at Virginia Western Community College, and in mid-afternoon often picks up extra hours back at Tudor's.
She pays for clothes and some meals. Half-price food is a Tudor's benefit, so Slocum chows down on tomato biscuits and hash browns.
"I don't have any bills, except credit cards," she said. She's doing a rare thing in this economy: She's saving money. Slocum wants to get a degree at Roanoke College and become a teacher.
She may leave home and get an apartment with friends this year. They're learning to pool resources to deal with the recession. "They're feeling it," she said of buddies who've moved out of their folks' homes.
David Burks, 31, has a partnership with his parents that helps them all in this economy.
He lives at home but earns his spending money delivering biscuits on foot and pouring drinks three days a week behind Tudor's counter.
Burks, at Tudor's since May 1990, has made many friends among office customers in downtown Roanoke. Last Christmas, they gave him presents.
But he's watched tips taper off in recent months as people manage their money more carefully. "I'm lucky now if I make $5 a day in tips," he said.
At 4:30 a.m., Mary Gearhart, 54, gets to Tudor's to make the first batch of biscuits. She fixes meat loaf, country-style steak and other lunch specials, too.
She'd been a waitress most of her life but quit last spring. When she applied at other restaurants, owners warned her age was a liability.
Six weeks later, Tudor hired her to cook. She likes it better than waitressing. She feels at home with Tudor's friendly crew and customers.
Her job has been a saving grace. Her husband, Larry, a 55-year-old brick mason's helper, fell off a scaffold recently. He broke two ribs and poked a hole in a lung.
He's received workmen's compensation. "With my job here," she said, "we manage to keep food on the table and the rent paid and the utilities paid."
Her husband's lung is healing. He's getting restless at their apartment on Day Avenue Southwest. She expects him to be back at work by spring.
"I try to save on everything I can," she said. She flips off lights and keeps the heat low.
She's grateful to Tudor for her job. "I really lucked out when he gave me a chance."
Preston Thompson, 63, a health-conscious sports coach around Roanoke, still goes bowling. And he recently got a good deal on a juice extractor.
But those extras are becoming rarer and rarer for Thompson and his wife of 46 years, Edith.
Thompson delivers biscuits and helps with cooking and biscuit-dispatching at Tudor's. He's been there a year and a half.
For the previous 40 years, he worked at businesses all over Roanoke. He supervised the Hotel Roanoke's giant dish-washing operation. For many years, he drove for Tidewater Supply Co. He's still a YMCA football coach and a baseball umpire for Little League and middle school teams.
Lately, he's witnessed a chain effect of layoffs at Roanoke businesses. Cutbacks at one work place cut into another's business, then another's, then another's.
It eventually reaches the biscuit business, he said. "For the economy to be in the shape it's in, we do a fairly good business," he said. "But it's nothing like it was."
He delivers biscuits to law firms, doctors' offices, factories, hospitals, homes and even other restaurants. Blue-collar workers are the ones he sees struggling the hardest.
"Everybody has this cautious attitude," he said, even about lunch orders. "People are not as liberal as they ordinarily would be." His $2 and $3 tips come less frequently now.
He is relieved that his six children are in professional and semi-professional jobs.
Like many frugal older couples, the Thompsons own their home. They've maintained top-grade health insurance policies. Their 1974 Toyota finally died a few months ago. They bought a 1985 Chevette.
After years of donating to many charities, Thompson said he and his wife have carefully picked a few to help. They reduced their United Way contribution last year.
But they remain loyal to their church, Central Baptist. "I've tightened the buckle on my belt to continue tithing," Thompson said.
Because of a reporter's error, Jessica Slocum's name was incorrect in a story about Tudor's Biscuit World in today's pre-printed Economy section. The photo caption with the same story reversed identifications of the shop's owner, Louis Tudor, and a customer.
Keywords:
PROFILE
Memo: CORRECTION