By Dave Benoff

Having learned the culinary arts fromtheir father, a Catskill Mountainshotelman, brothers Sal and Rudy

Celentano saw opportunity when a restau-rant they could afford went on sale inHackensack, N.J., back in 1975. Theytook over the place and reopened as a fam-ily restaurant with an Italian flair. Andsince it was Rudy who put up the lion’sshare, he got to put his name on the sign.The Anderson Street eatery soon began todraw crowds because the brothers wentout of their way to satisfy. If it wasn’t onthe menu, no matter. If a customer wantedit, they’d make it. Some of the clienteledrifted in from the hangars, ramps andpilot lounges at Teterboro Airport, just afew miles to the south. The aviation crowdliked the fare and wanted the Celentanosto furnish boxed meals for their aircraftpassengers, but the brothers declined,uncomfortable with the concept ofremotely served meals.

In the early 1980s, Sal’s sons Joe andJohn graduated from New York Universityand decided to go into business together.What their father and uncle had regardedas problematic, they saw as opportunity,and “Rudy’s Inflight Catering” was born.

Operating on a shoestring budget, thebrothers worked out of the back of therestaurant in a tiny office and small foodprep area. They couldn’t even afford theirown phone. Recalled Joe, “When a pilotcalled in an order, it came into the restau-rant and was passed on to us in the back.”

In their first year, the brothers were pro-ducing meals for approximately 16 aircraft aweek. A year and a half later, they weredoing 15 to 20 aircraft a day, operated twovehicles and had six employees — three ofwhom still work for them — and were fastoutgrowing their backroom space. Twoother facts helped motivate a search fortheir own digs. First, NetJets wanted tocontract with a caterer, but said the brotherswould have to grow their services and capa-bilities substantially if they hoped to win

the business. Secondly, Uncle Rudy wantedto sell his eponymous eatery and retire.

And thus did Joe and John purchase andrenovate a small building on Union Streetin Hackensack, just a mile and a half fromTEB’s control tower. The decisioncinched the NetJets contract, and withthat the company began to expand rapidly.“We instantly grew to 35 employees, fourtrucks and were servicing Teterboro,Newark and Morristown,” said Joe. Oneof those employees was their father, Sal.

With the move into their own facility,the brothers considered replacing thename Rudy’s, which at that point wasessentially meaningless, with something,well, meaningful. “We never wanted tokeep the Rudy’s name,” said Joe, “butbecause we achieved name recognition atthe restaurant, we had to stay with a brandthat pilots felt comfortable with.”

Very quickly the business outgrew itsnew 5,000-square-foot location, and thebrothers built a 1,600-square-foot additionand added a second floor for storage andcooking. “Looking back to the UnionStreet facility, I don’t how we ever workedout of such a small place,” said Joe.

In 1998, John told his brother that he

found a place located on North Street inTeterboro that was perfect for them.

“When I first saw it I told him that hewas insane,” said Joe. “‘How do you expectme to fill it?’ I asked him.” But John con-vinced his brother that the move madesense, and he soon proved to be right. Infact, within three years they had to put ona 1,000-square-foot addition, bringing thefacility to its present-day size of 17,000square feet. And in addition to that, thebrothers operate a second facility acrossthe Hudson River in Elmsford, N.Y., justminutes from Westchester CountyAirport (HPN). Today, Rudy’s InflightCatering employs 120 people and serves allthe New York/New Jersey metropolitanairports. It’s a 24/7/365 operation that con-tinues as always to answer every pilot’s callwith a human, not an answering machine.

The sophistication NetJets wanted in itscaterer is apparent in Rudy’s daily opera-tion. Early on, the company adoptedNASA’s Hazard Analysis and CriticalControl Point (HACCP) program.Developed for the space shuttle astro-nauts, HACCP is a quality assurance pro-gram designed to analyze potential foodhazards, identify times when food might

R e f l e c t i o n s

Not on the Menu

The original staff at Rudy’s Inflight Catering worked out of the back of a restaurant, but would soon bein the forefront of the business aviation catering industry.

Rud

y’s

How two brothers turned a request for takeoutinto an aviation institution

Reprinted With Permission From August 2003 Business & Commercial Aviation©2003, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

be exposed to contamination, and establisha procedure unique to a specific operation.

“In the United States, HACCP is acompletely voluntary program and itsimplementation is very expensive,” said JoeCelentano. “In fact, when we first startedthe program, I wondered if its value wouldbe worth the aggravation.”

Not long after beginning the program inthe early 1990s, Rudy’s discovered itsvalue. The pilot of a Gulfstream IV calledJoe late one afternoon and said that hisCEO was in the emergency room withextreme abdominal pain. The executivewas on a diet and the pilot said that theonly thing he had eaten that day was achicken salad sandwich from Rudy’s.

Joe immediately began an HACCPaudit of the chicken salad. He called otherflight operations that had also been sentchicken salad, and chicken from that day’sbatch, but none reported any problems. Inresearching all records, he discovered at notime was the chicken out of temperatureor exposed to contamination. The quickaudit suggested the chicken was OK. Itwasn’t until the next day that the real cul-prit emerged. It seems that the CEO wasbeing badgered into dieting by his wife,and had his limo driver stop off and pickup two hot dogs for him from a New Yorkstreet vendor before heading out to theairport. It was the hot dogs, not the chick-en, that had been contaminated and gavethe executive food poisoning.

After this incident, the brothers weretrue believers. As a result, today, at the top

and bottom of the hour, a red light andbuzzer go off and work stops as a steadystream of food handlers go to the washbasins to clean their hands. In addition,every time a worker changes to a differenttype of food, he or she washes their handsagain. And every six months, an employeeis required to attend recurrent training onbiohazards, microbiology and food han-dling, among other things. At the end oftraining, the employees are tested and ifthe person is a supervisor, he or she mustcorrectly answer all questions regardingFDA requirements.

“Now that we have completely adaptedHACCP to our facility, we are demandingthat all our vendors be HACCP compli-ant,” said Joe Celentano.

Once the food leaves the building, it isplaced in Cornish containers inside thetruck and then to refrigerators located atthe FBOs. “We purchase the refrigeratorsfor the FBOs at a cost of $3,000 per unit,”said Joe. “However, the FBO is responsiblefor maintaining it and we will validate thatthe units are up to HACCP levels.”

The Food and Drug Administration,which monitors food handling, auditsRudy’s at least two times a year. The localFDA representative told B/CA that Rudy’swas more like a high-end restaurant than acaterer because it custom cooks for eachorder, whereas the big caterers use anassembly-line process when puttingtogether meals.

“We also handle a lower volume of ordersthan does the typical caterer,” said Joe.Rudy’s, on average moves approximately300 orders per day, whereas an airline cater-er might move 30,000 orders in a day.

“Some of our customers ask for uniquethings,” said John Celentano. And follow-ing in the tradition of the original Rudy’srestaurant, if a customer wants it, Rudy’s

R e f l e c t i o n s

From special brands to dog treats, Rudy’s’ policyis, “You want it, we’ll get it for you.”

Rud

y’s

A wine cellar that a sommelier would envy

Rud

y’s

Reprinted With Permission From August 2003 Business & Commercial Aviation©2003, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Inflight will get it. On the orders tableduring a B/CA visit was a wide variety ofitems, ranging from exotic cheeses to MilkBones for one exec’s dog.

Rudy’s has a liquor license and itsTeterboro wine cellar rivals those of thegreat restaurants of New York City. Inaddition, Rudy’s will completely exhaustthe equivalent of its entire cellar everythree months.

“We have it all,” said Joe. “If you wantsushi, we have a sushi chef come in. Wantkosher food? We have a kosher HACCPkitchen on contract.” Rudy’s even has aflorist who will provide special flowerarrangements for your flight.

On one occasion during a gathering atthe United Nations, Rudy’s found itselfproviding service for more than 20 foreigngovernments. “It was interesting havingthe secret services from different countriesobserve our operation,” said Celentano.“In fact, there were times when we hadtwo countries that didn’t get along havingto work together in close quarters.”

One dignitary on a world tour was soconfident in Rudy’s service that he tookfour coffin-size containers of food withhim so he wouldn’t have to take aboardany provisions from anywhere else. In atight economy the price of services,including catering, is always under review.But the Celentanos are confident thattheirs measures up. “We know price is anissue,” Joe acknowledged. “But if service isimpeccable, the costs should be justified.Our customers want quality,” he added,“and because of my relationship with thevendors, I can get anything I need on amoment’s notice.”

And that has always been the key toRudy’s service, Joe explained, adding: “Ifyou want it, we’ll get it for you.” B/CA

The master chef awaits your order. Rudy’s hasnever failed to meet a customer’s request.

Rud

y’s

Reprinted With Permission From August 2003 Business & Commercial Aviation©2003, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.