They broke the mold when it comes to customer service when Stewart’s in New Paltz hired Alice Olivera-Cannon — 13 years ago. Olivera-Cannon, now the manager at the New Paltz Stewart’s, had a long history in the service business in New York City prior to moving up north with her husband and then-young baby girl Alicia.
“I worked for a long time managing Sweetwater’s, a restaurant near Lincoln Center that had live entertainment,” said Olivera-Cannon. At the same time, she also owned and operated a grocery store in Westchester during the day. “It was an enjoyable but a very hectic schedule, and when I became pregnant, I knew I couldn’t keep it up.”
While they had enjoyed the City as a young couple, she and her husband decided that they wanted to raise their daughter in a different environment. They looked all over the Hudson Valley and finally settled on a home in Gardiner. “My husband wanted a Victorian home,” she said. “But with a one-year-old baby, I was terrified of stairs. I wanted one level!” The couple compromised when they found a one-level ranch house in Gardiner with lots of acreage. “He was happy to have all that land, and I was relieved to have no stairs,” she said with a laugh.
As their daughter grew and the daily mother-demands lessened, Olivera-Cannon became anxious to get back to work. Her husband saw an advertisement for a manager of a new Stewart’s that was opening in Modena and suggested that his wife apply.
She learned that the Stewart’s culture always put a senior manager into a new store, but they suggested that she give the New Paltz store a try – which she did, and has never looked back.
Even when she’s busy, there are lines for ice cream out the door, she’s taking inventory or making a wide array of hot and cold takeout sandwiches, Olivera-Cannon always appears happy, chatting with customers, moving so quickly that it appears effortless. “My biggest enjoyment is the people. I look forward to seeing them. I know them by name, I know what they do for a living, what their children’s names are, what they like, how their day is going…”
She has such a rapport with Stewart’s regulars that she says they truly feel that they’re “part of my family, part of our Stewart’s family…We talk or joke, but when I’m busy they understand that I can’t talk or joke as much as I’d like to.”
There are several different Stewart rushes — the summer ice-cream rush, the morning commuter rush, the pre-dinner rush, the lunch rush — yet Olivera-Cannon looks forward to all of them, even if she has to work at lightning speed. “My day usually starts with the early-morning crowd that is on their way to work. They get their coffee and something for breakfast; our eggwiches are the most popular, and I get to know exactly how they like them made.”
She said that it’s a “long morning,” with different waves of people coming in on their way to work or dropping their kids off at school, or making their way to the booths to read the paper and enjoy the company whom they find at Stewart’s. “I’ll look up and say, ‘It’s 11 a.m. already?’ The time just flies, and by that point, many of our early-morning customers are coming back for lunch!”
Then there is the pre-dinner, after-work rush of customers picking up milk, supplies for dinner, something quick-to-go if they’re taking their children from school to another activity.
“Ice cream is always big here, but there’s nothing like the amount of ice cream we serve in the summer, with the heat and the [Moriello] pool next door. I get to know the swimmers from the pool, the lifeguards. Many of them come back years later and they have their own children! It’s very special to watch children grow and then see them have their own children.”
Then there is the “Stewart’s Club.” These are the people who spend time hanging out at the booths inside Stewart’s for long periods of time. “These are my favorite,” she said. “They come in, have their coffee, read a paper. They might come in two or three times a day and have another coffee, a snack and read another newspaper. Then there are the people that meet here on their way back from work. They’re friends that want to catch up before they go home for the evening, or they meet after dinner and just shoot the breeze. There are retired people that meet here to talk about the news of the day. And then there are the families that stay and eat ice cream, or the kids in the summer who come and have breakfast after a swim practice.”
For Olivera-Cannon, there is one truth about customer service that cannot be avoided: “You really have to like people. It’s not something you can learn. It’s in you. And Stewart’s is such a family-oriented business. It was started by a family; their employees own one-third of the company; they do all of this fundraising and outreach within their immediate community.”
She noted how the New Paltz Stewart’s does a fundraising drive from November through the end of December, and whatever money it raises in its jar, it matches. Various local organizations can apply for funding. “It can be Family of New Paltz, or maybe one of the local schools needs computers…but it has to be local and it has to benefit children year-round.”
What sets this Stewart’s apart from others, in Olivera-Cannon’s estimation, is the fact that it’s “not located on Main Street. We’re a little off the beaten path, so the people that come here on a regular basis are really within our community.”
She said that the new New Paltz Loop Bus system, which along with other public transport buses picks up and drops off at the park-and-ride directly across from Stewart’s off Route 32 North, has “brought a lot more college students to Stewart’s, which we enjoy. I think the Loop Bus is so important for those students, because it gives them more freedom – a chance to get out and do their shopping and see more of New Paltz without having to have a car.”
Without her fellow workers, Olivera-Cannon said that the job just wouldn’t be the same. “We only hire very special people here,” she said. “They’re all individuals, and some might be shy at first, but they have big hearts and they enjoy people. I always like when they tell me, ‘No, Alice, that’ s not right!’ I don’t need to be yessed to death. If I was always right and had nothing to learn, then we’d never grow; and here at Stewart’s we want to grow with the community and the world.” ++
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