First lady of fine catering

Last November, Abigail Kirsch, founder of the catering business that runs Abigail Kirsch at Tappan Hill in Tarrytown, had her company cater a party at her own Pound Ridge home.

And then, just before the event, disaster seemed to hit when the electricity went out.

"I watched a chef set

Kirsch said she walked away from the catering and attended to her guests, which is what she wants her customers to be able to do.

"It's an incredibly intense, service-oriented business," she said. "You can't make a mistake. There is one party. It is one happening, and you have to be on your toes all the time. You're doing somebody's business event, anniversary - a mark on somebody's life, and the responsibility is really tremendous."

That attention to good service is a major reason why Kirsch could build her business from the first party she catered for 30 people in 1974 into a company with 250 full-time and 450 parttime employees. Kirsch's business-success won her this year's Women in Business Success Award from The Business Council of Westchester.

"She's someone who had a great idea of what to do to serve people - a commitment to excellence - and she became a dominant force in the catering industry," said Ronald Stytzer, chairman of the selection committee, which chose Kirsch and four other businesses or business leaders for this year's Westchester County Business Hall of Fame awards.

Stryker himself owns a catering business, Antun's of Westchester in Elmsford.

Kirsch also won the Lifetime Achievement Award in January from the International Association of Caterers and catersource magazine.

"Abigail was the first person to take catering to a professional and business level," the magazine said in its January issue. "Her methods and systems have influenced everything that is catering today! Along with her husband, Robert, and son, James, their company has become one or the five-largest privately owned catering businesses in the U.S."

Michele Breslin of Harrison had Kirsch's company cater the bat mitzvahs of both of her daughters, first in 2002 and then earlier this month. The event for 200 at the New York Botanical Gardens went well, she said. "The event manager ... was just phenomenal," Breslin said. "She took care of everything. I was a guest at my own party."

Abigail Kirsch's company, officially called Abigail Kirsch Culinary Productions Ltd., not only runs the Abigail Kirsch at Tappan Hill, but also caters at the Botanical Gardens in the Bronx. Since the late 1990s, it has been at two locations at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan. Recently, it started catering from its own yacht in New York Harbor.

Kirsch-catered events nowadays can be huge, The Pier Sixty space at Chelsea Piers can accommodate 1,500 guests for dinner and 2,000 for cocktails, Kirsch said.

"When we do an event, we know who the band is ... who is this, who is that and we are four-star generals," Kirsch said. "We lead the entire production so that we know what's happening at all times.

"We are also very cognizant of our clients. We are listening to what they are saying and understanding what they're saying, so we're doing what they want," she said. "If Mr. Jones wants his water glass filled every five minutes, then we have a waiter filling his glass."

The company recognizes workers with an employee-of-themonth award and through its "Caught in the Act" award.

"If someone does CPR when someone has a heart attack - and that's happened," then an employee could get that recognition, Kirsch said. When the catered event at her own home went well, "I sent an e-mail to the director of human resources, and I said, 'I have three people who were caught in the act.' "

Kirsch, who always loved to cook, started a cooking school in 1966 and wrote her first cookbook, "Teen Cuisine," in 1968. By the early 1970s, she had begun to get requests for small catering events. Then, one day in the early 1970s, someone organizing a special event for PepsiCo Inc. asked her to cater a luncheon for 500 guests. After she accomplished that, she knew she could handle the catering business.

Her husband retired in 1975 and joined her in the business. At first, they ran a small outdoor cafe in the summer in Chappaqua and did off-premises catering at various locations. By 1989, they arranged with David Swope, owner of Club Fit and another winner of one of this year's Westchester Business Hall of Fame Awards, to take over the Tappan Hill mansion as a permanent catering establishment.

Over the years, Kirsch has continued to write cookbooks, including "Invitation to Dinner," published in 1998, and "The Bride & Groom's Menu Cookbook," which came out in 2002. She has appeared on the "Today" show, CNN, the Food Network and The Discovery Channel, and has written various magazine and newspaper articles.

Surprises sometimes happen in the business. At a wedding in the 1980s for "a very significant man in Scarsdale" a bus with the catering staff ended up in Poughkeepsie rather than the correct location, she said.

"It was my day off and my son's day off, but after a telephone call we zoomed to that party - the whole kitchen staff came out," she recalled. "We all set the tables. The bus arrived just before the event. The host was aware something was up, but my husband never said anything, and no one knew anything."

At an event at the Botanical Gardens, the florist who provided the flowers also supplied mint green table cloths. Kirsch's company was serving mint-green pea soup.

"And, the soup dish was glass," Kirsch said. "Bob and I watched as the women came in and put their purses right in the center of the soup!"

About a year and a half ago, the company bought a yacht the "Abigail K" - from which it caters events at New York Harbor.

"I have never gone out on that yacht and seen the Statue of Liberty without tears running down my face," she said.

Kirsch writes a monthly column for The Journal News newspaper and remains involved with public relations for her company. Her husband remains involved with the company's marketing and finance matters.

The company now plans to open a space at the former Brooklyn Navy Yard.

"We can have weddings there, big events there when the huge (sound) stages are not in use, but then we have our own space there as well," she said. "Jim is constantly looking at ways to brow the business."