For Frank Cardullo, A Lifelong Love Translates to Business

Frank Cardullo was ten years old on April 1, 1950, when Cardullo's Gourmet Shop opened.

Though Frank has aged a little in the nearly half a century that Cardullo's has been around, the store hasn't. It still caters to its loyal Harvard Square customers, selling cups of orange ginger mint tea and Godiva chocolate creme coffee.

"My father loved this store," said Cardullo. "My mother was also very influential in shaping the store as we know it today. She had a real passion for it."

He seems to have inherited that passion.

"Food has always been in my blood and a part of my background," Cardullo said. "Everywhere I went in the world I was always looking around for it."

Before it brought him back to Cambridge, his yen for great food would follow him as he tried engineering and aviation.

He worked at the store for a while after college, but grew a little restless.

"My real background was always electrical engineering," Cardullo said. "Then I pursued a career in aviation. Flying really satisfied the gypsy in me, but I always missed Cardullo's."

Thinking that farming might fill his need for great food, he bought a farm in Ohio in 1978.

"Every year I would take two weeks off and come back and help out for the Christmas season," he said. "Then I started coming back the day before Thanksgiving and I would stay through the new year."

His helping hand soon turned into a full-time job: When his father retired, Cardullo bought the store and took control at the beginning of 1993.

Though the store was full of family memories, it was going through an identity crisis. Helping it beyond that was Cardullo's first order of business.

"One problem was that when I started, Cardullo's really lacked an identity. People didn't know what we did," he said. "We have an Italian name but at that time we sold mostly German products."

Another challenge was to bring the store into the technology era--when Cardullo bought the store, there wasn't even a calculator in it. So he amassed a database of the store's products, which let him administrate more efficiently.

But Cardullo said he tried to keep the family atmosphere and devoted staff that his father established.

Again, the secret might be in the bloodline.

"My 15-year-old son Francis has been a cashier since he was 11. He probably knows more about the computer system than I do. He really loves the store," Cardullo said.

Though times are changing in Harvard Square--the bright Abercrombie & Fitch sign that can be seen through the Cardullo's window says as much--Cardullo said he is confident in the future of the store.

"My father really believed in Harvard Square," Cardullo said. "He was here for 53 years. I am terribly afraid that the small shops in the Square may be forced out because of the rent, and I would hate to see that. Tourists want to come to Harvard Square because of the uniqueness of the shops."

But long-term, of course, it's regular customers that matter.

"We don't compete with the Williams-Sonomas of the world," Cardullo explains. "We're in our own little niche. We listen to what the customers want."

And though he's been there for nearly half a century, Cardullo maintains that his shop never ceases to surprise him.

"There is never a shortage of work. That's the thing about being the owner. If we are short a cashier, I become the cashier."