Erbert & Gerbert’s – Mike Steindl

July 1, 2014 Daniel Vance

The Steindl

Mankato franchisee owner has successful sandwich stores in Mankato (two), St. Peter, and North Mankato.

A long, long time ago, back when people didn’t eat sandwiches, a thoughtful soul named Mike Steindl dreamed of owning four successful Erbert & Gerbert’s sandwich shops, in Mankato, St. Peter, Mankato (again) and North Mankato. Except back then he didn’t know where the shops would be or even what a sandwich was because he and his neighbors ate only asparagus.

But he had this dream, you know.

One day he rode his white 1991 Chevy Corsica atop Mt. Kato and from his dream memory spontaneously shouted out his window to all the valley people below the names of, as yet, non-existent Erbert & Gerbert’s sandwiches: Geeter. Bornk. Pudder, Girf, Morehouse.

From that day on, the valley people began calling anyone driving a white 1991 Chevy Corsica and shouting memorable but nearly unpronounceable sandwich names from Mt. Kato a Steindl, or sometimes just Mike, depending on their mood, which made Mike very merry. One day he would own four Erbert & Gerbert’s franchises that sold those exact same sandwich names, which forever and ever taught him that dreams have good consequences.

Every real-life Erbert & Gerbert’s sandwich shop franchise—this is a real story now—features silly sandwich names derived from insanely fictional tales like those above. The Geeter, Bornk, Pudder, Girf, and Morehouse really exist as sandwiches. You can read the fictional stories behind these sandwich names and others on delightful posters inside each location. The father of the founder of Erbert & Gerbert’s used to tell these types of tall tales to his children, and so the founder’s son later turned them into menu items.

A real Mike Steindl exists (see right), and today he owns and operates four of these Erbert & Gerbert’s sandwich shops, in Mankato (two), St. Peter, and North Mankato.

Steindl had a lifelong dream of being a small business owner. His sandwich shop on Front Street in downtown Mankato was his first and is his best, and has been the 70-unit, Wisconsin-based, franchise’s overall best seven times, in 1997-99, 2000, 2005-06, and 2010. Since the late ‘90s, Steindl has been on the franchise’s President’s Advisory Council, and currently is one of only four franchisees on.

In late 1996, at age 32, he partially financed his first Erbert & Gerbert’s with $10,000 from selling his pickup truck and another $15,000 borrowed from his sister and parents, which he repaid, with interest. Now at age 49, Steindl, and his real-life story culminating in his being a small business owner, have more of a storybook feel, just like his sandwich names.

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Steindl arose from an unlikely background to become a successful franchise owner. He was raised in Evansville, Wisconsin, a rural city about the size of Le Sueur, and had five brothers and sisters, but was more an only child given his siblings all were at least nine years older.

He said in a Connect Business Magazine interview from his 501 S. Front restaurant, “I was the only one of the six to complete a four-year college degree. My father worked at the General Motors plant in Janesville (Wisconsin) as a tinsmith doing sheet metal work, and my mother worked on the assembly line at Parker Pen Corporation. My dad worked third shift, mom the first, and the two traded off on childcare. One fundamental ethic in the family was working hard and believing good things would happen from it.”

When Steindl was eight, his older brother and role model, 18-year-old Harlan Jr., was upset with his girlfriend one night and sped through town in his car while being chased by local police. Harlan failed to navigate a sharp turn and crashed into an embankment, ending his life. Mike had looked up to his big brother.

“With Harlan dying, it was (especially) difficult for my dad, Harlan Sr.,” said Steindl. “Because of my age, it didn’t really sink in at the time. But when I talk about it now, it brings back memories. Though 41 years ago, you never lose the memory. It makes you appreciate the time you have with the ones you care about.”

He said his strong, close-knit family persevered through the grief. Today, as if a big brother, he sometimes has conversations with college-age employees dealing with relationship issues. It seems ironic Steindl chose South Front Street in Mankato as the site of his first franchise, right smack in the middle of what many people call Mankato’s Barmuda Triangle, an area teeming at night with 18-year-old students.

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“I don’t really know where my desire to own a small business came from,” said Steindl, continuing on. His first experience owning a business involved trapping muskrat, raccoon, and mink, and selling the pelts for cash. He and a friend did it for three years in high school. During a six-week window each fall before the first freeze, the pair rose at five a.m. before school to run their trap line. He alone earned nearly $2,000 doing it.

In high school, he also had odd jobs baling hay and milking cows for local dairy farmers. But his best managerial experience—extremely helpful later on—came at the Evansville municipal pool, where he was a swimming instructor and lifeguard over three summers and the de facto manager over 15 employees his last year.

He said, “It was fun working with kids, and just seeing them succeed and grow. I enjoyed teaching the kids. Plus I had the responsibility of being in charge of the pool my last year. I would get up at six a.m. to wash the deck and get everything ready for lessons. We had a concession stand, too. It was my first managerial experience. I believe the city pool director hired me as manager (the last year) because I had the desire to do things right. I do a complete job and don’t cut corners.”

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Steindl set out on his own in September 1983 to earn a degree at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire because of its business school reputation and to fulfill his dream of owning a small business, specifically then, a resort in northern Wisconsin. His vision for his future sort of evaporated right before his eyes, and lasted only 18 months, before he had to return home to Evansville.

He said, “I was having too much fun and not being responsible. My parents had agreed to help me out with paying for school and I felt bad not fulfilling my end of the bargain.”

This career derailment resulted in Steindl landing a job as a salesperson at Team Electronics, a Janesville (Wisconsin) computer electronics store, right when Apple computers were arriving hot and heavy on the scene. He learned salesmanship in a retail environment there, he said, and developed problem solving, listening, and people skills. After a year and a half at that, he returned to Eau Claire to finish his business degree, but this time he vowed to work his own way through school.

One job he had in Eau Claire for over two years was at Shenanigan’s, a bar and restaurant, an experience that laid the “framework for many of the business qualities I have now,” he said, including becoming detail-oriented, and learning about advertising and marketing.

Having to pay his own way through college, he wouldn’t finish his four-year degree until 1990. At Erbert & Gerbert’s today, he encourages some employees in college struggling with career aspirations to perhaps follow in his footsteps—take a semester or two off to figure out life.

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After college, he eventually joined home improvement chain Menard’s, based in Eau Claire, which moved him around as an assistant manager to six different stores over a five-year period. His last move, to South St. Paul, occurred because the company, due to a non-fraternization policy, would not allow him to work at the same store as his girlfriend, Michelle, who was an assistant manager. She would later become his wife. At Menard’s, he learned a great deal about management and running a retail operation, he said, and was fortunate his first manager was one of the company’s best. Besides his experience at Menard’s offering further preparation for running a business, it also seeded in him a desire to move because of its policies.

A friend of his from college before, at the time, was in Eau Claire as the corporate trainer for a new franchise sandwich shop operation, Erbert & Gerbert’s. “So I called him and said I had always wanted to have my own business. I asked him to tell me about Erbert & Gerbert’s,” he said. “There were only about ten locations then, and the corporate headquarters was only two doors down from Shenanigan’s. I had eaten at Erbert & Gerbert’s before and they had great sandwiches.”

The franchise rights were only $10,000 then and eventually he learned the build-out for his first location would be only $125,000. He would finance his first location, which began in 1996, in part by selling his pickup truck to scrape up $10,000 and borrowing $15,000 from his sister and parents. The rest came from an Eau Claire bank.

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It had taken him a full year to find the right city and location. He chose downtown Mankato, and specifically 501 South Front, after walking up and down Mankato streets introducing himself and inquiring about possible storefronts for rent. Mankato had a steady base of college students, which was important to Steindl for sandwich sales and for recruiting employees. It also had a rock-solid downtown business base from which to draw customers.

“After spending a week in Mankato, I realized (501 South Front) was in the middle of the Barmuda Triangle. I knew we would need business at all times of the day. Lunch would be our strongest time, but anything after lunch would be a bonus. I knew the Thursday through Saturday night college bar crowd would help business.”

That Front Street location, along with an efficient operation, would earn Steindl the Erbert & Gerbert’s “Franchisee of the Year” award a total of seven times, including his first three years in business, from 1997-99, and most recently in 2010.

After South Front Street, Steindl went on to open additional shops in St. Peter (2000), Madison Avenue (Mankato, 2003), and North Mankato (2012), and even though those locations somewhat cannibalized sales, he was able through each new location to increase market share and improve service levels at a highly successful downtown location that had been perhaps too busy. Erbert & Gerbert’s currently has about 70 locations nationally and nearly 30 individual franchisees.

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As for his business today, Steindl said, “We’re a stepping stone for training our future leaders. Most of our employees are in the 18-22 age range, with the exception of my management staff, which has been with me quite some time. We’re trying to teach employees how to do the right things, such as being on time, following guidelines, being professional, making sure you say hi and thank you, and being appreciative of guests. Even the small things go a long ways.”

Recruitment of employees was a much easier task in the late ‘90s, especially for the South Front location, when the Barmuda Triangle had fewer restaurant and bar options; but now, said Steindl, a college student has about 25 other work options within a two-block area downtown.

“We haven’t lowered standards for the type of employee we’re looking for,” he said. “We especially want someone with an upbeat personality and a ‘see and do’ attitude, meaning they see something that needs doing and they just do it. There are lots of sub sandwich shops, but in order for customers to choose Erbert & Gerbert’s every time, we have to have great staff. We try to get to know customers on a first-name basis.”

The business has marketing interns who, for example, take samples to local businesses for developing possible catering clients, contact incoming college sports teams to glean sales, and market through social media. Steindl said he gives interns some flexibility in terms of trying out new marketing ideas.

He said his biggest challenges in running the business involve maintaining top-quality product, limiting food waste, and maximizing labor. As for the former, i.e., having a top-quality product, he said, “I’m on the (Erbert & Gerbert’s) President’s Advisory Council and in testing our product the number one thing we look for is taste. A (suggested) sub might be cheaper to make, for example, but if it doesn’t taste good, we aren’t going to use it. We’ve always had the best cold deli sandwich in the business. We have fantastic breads that are baked here, too.”

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Over the years, Steindl has had formidable Mankato competition, including some franchises that have come and gone, including Cousin’s and Mr. GoodSense, and then there is the current crop that includes Subway, Jersey Mike’s, and Jimmy John’s.

He said, “My managers and staff sometimes get nervous when a competing store opens (and some of our customers go there to try them out). I tell them we will be okay and if we concentrate on what we do best the customers will come back. We’re starting our eighteenth year in Mankato and that is a testament to our doing it the right way. If you do it best all the time, you’ll be successful long-term. This business is not a sprint.”

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Why Hockey?

Erbert & Gerbert’s franchise owner Mike Steindl is president of the Mankato Area Hockey Association (MAHA), which serves 365 children who play at All Seasons Arena.

He said, “I used to skate on the pond back home in pickup hockey games, but I never played organized hockey myself in school. My father used to take me to University of Wisconsin games. My wife is from Minnesota and hockey is in this state’s culture. My oldest boy here took a liking to hockey. So I went on the board five years ago, and became president a year ago.”

When asked exactly what he does, he said, “What don’t I do as president? Our board wears many hats. It’s not easy being a nonprofit youth association. We try building awareness, and do mailers and send fliers into schools. We try keeping entry into the program at a low cost, provide equipment for kids, and have initiation programs at a low cost. Hockey is a fantastic game that teaches teamwork, discipline, and hard work. There are so many life lessons that come from playing any team sport.”

Test Market

Said Steindl, “We are a test store for many new products on the Erbert & Gerbert’s menu. So in Mankato or North Mankato, you might get a little precursor of what could be coming on the menu in the future because we test some of the products here first.”