There’s an old Yiddish proverb that goes, “If you want your dreams to come true, don’t sleep.”Sophomore letters and sciences majors Ari Augenbaum and Debby Heinrich said since investing $1,200 and six months into Capitol Kosher food delivery service, they’ve been spending more time taking orders than counting sheep.
The business idea was hatched last winter, while Heinrich was still a student at Queens College in New York. Over late night phone calls, Heinrich and Augenbaum laid plans for a delivery service to connect observant Jews isolated from the kosher food required by religious law.
Augenbaum had long considered opening a delivery service for college students. Growing up in Silver Spring, he would watch on Sundays as scores of religious university students would flood Shaul’s Kosher Market in Wheaton, the local market where he worked since age 13.
But the two saw an opportunity when they realized many students here can’t always find rides to Wheaton, and are sometimes unable to make it for kosher meals offered at Hillel during the dining hall’s short hours.
Junior communications major Libi Adler estimates she misses two to three meals a week at Hillel, and sometimes can’t find rides to local markets.
“I feel bad asking for rides,” she said. “Sometimes people just don’t have time.”
Serving students was what launched the idea, but as demand grew, the two found themselves losing sleep as they balanced a full schedule of classes.
“It’s a lot of staying up late,” Heinrich said. “It’s not easy, but at some point it just became a part of my life.”
The business has quickly blossomed into a six-figure enterprise serving the entire metropolitan area, with orders routinely coming from as far as Richmond, Va.
The business delivers a wide array of standard groceries and hot meals, such as salads and rotisserie chickens, as well as traditional Jewish favorites such as chopped herring, smoked salmon and glatt kosher meats.
Although just a sophomore, Augenbaum is not new to owning businesses. At the age of 15, he owned Captain T’s, a Silver Spring-based kosher catering outlet that led to strong connections with four major food suppliers from throughout the Washington area, and even a New York City bakery.
“If you’re in the food services industries you know all the owners,” Augenbaum said.
Capitol Kosher maintains a steady base of regular customers who have found the sense of community traditionally associated with kosher markets in areas where there are no physical outlets to be found, Augenbaum said.
“We feel that just because the customers aren’t seeing the owner when you place your order you shouldn’t lose the feel of your neighborhood grocer,” he said.
The same way regular customers at a local butcher can request their steaks be cut a quarter-inch thicker than last time, Capitol Kosher offers that service, providing a sense of familiarity that keeps customers coming back with their special requests, Augenbaum said.
Sometimes these special requests have gone beyond the standard meat and potatoes of food service, however, and Augenbaum and Heinrich have found themselves in unfamiliar parts of Washington to complete deliveries. Once, a deliveryman had to negotiate a package past embassy security guards who wanted to break the kashrut seals, which ensure the item’s purity, in order to do a search.
“People have found they can rely on us,” Heinrich said. “We want people to know that we are there to help them and give them what they need.”
Contact reporter Ben Slivnick at slivnickdbk@gmail.com.
