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Three generations and 78 years later, the company they built, Globe Equipment Co., is still going strong. It provides everything from chef toques and gas ranges to soup ladles and fruit baskets to restaurants around the world.
“We’ve got financial records that go back to 1938,” said Brian Ringelheim, Globe’s vice president, with President Jay Ringelheim, his dad. “It just kind of grew from there.”
This June, the company will host a three-day grand reopening of its newly expanded showroom, featuring cooking and bartending demonstrations, food samples, raffles and giveaways for both the seasoned chef and the home cook looking to kick it up a notch.
The new 10,000-square-foot showroom has been updated to look a little more like a retail space and recent construction connected two buildings and created a 40,000-square-foot warehouse, Ringelheim said.
Though most of the business centers on sales in Connecticut, the Internet means Globe sells to customers worldwide, including large-scale concerns in the Middle East and the Caribbean, he said.
And Globe isn’t done yet. Future plans include installing a test kitchen, “so customers can try before they buy,” he said.
Ringelheim would also like to use that space for cooking classes and food photography.
“Local restaurants all want pictures of their food on their websites,” he said. “If we put in the kitchen and the lighting, they could make the food here and then photograph it.”
While it’s not well known, Globe is open to the general public looking for restaurant-quality wares.
“It’s about quality and longevity of the items,” Ringelheim said. “There’s a lot of stuff you can find here or we can order that people don’t even know exists.”
The grand reopening runs Thursday, June 23, and Friday, June 24, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday, June 25, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Globe Equipment, 300 Dewey St. For more information, visit Globe’s website.
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