Daniel Coyle

The short answer is that they are, I think, measurably one of the most remarkable business stories in America.

I think there should be MBA classes led and taught out there.

What they've done is quite remarkable.

The short answer is I'd been there a few times and I'd felt the energy and I'd read a bit about them and I knew just enough to have them be a mystery to me.

Started as a one building deli, 1982.

Started by people who had very little experience.

One was a dishwasher.

One was, I think, a manager of a restaurant, maybe.

Their goal was to build a great Jewish deli in Ann Arbor, one that was so good that you bit into the Reuben and the juice ran down your arm.

That was the vision.

Yeah, right, exactly.

Good vision.

And they did.

10 years go by, and pretty soon, as in every business, people start copying them.

right people start copying the typeface people start copying the menu it's easy that's business right then so the two partners sit down and they say what do we want to be that same conversation that chilean miners had that same conversation the new england patriots had that same awkward vulnerable difficult whoa we got to let go of control here and see what this is all about and so they had that conversation and they developed this vision

that of a community of businesses that were all rooted in Ann Arbor, connected by the Zingerman's ethos, not outside Ann Arbor at all, all in Ann Arbor.

And sure enough, that's what they built, working with partners, developing this very communal structure.

But now there's a coffee shop, there's a bakery, there's a roadhouse restaurant, there's a wedding planning outfit, there's a travel business, there's a huge catalog business.

It's now a $90 million business.

completely organic, soulful community of businesses that is, by some measures, some of the people that I met with who worked there, they had Harvard MBAs.