Partners gets crackin' in new Kent plant

Marian Harris used to make all her crackers by hand. She flattened the dough with a rolling pin and baked them in her home kitchen on Vashon Island.

That worked for years, when Harris owned The Bakery in Pioneer Square and a restaurant called Marian's in Bellevue. But when she started selling her crackers separately to specialty stores, the home factory got cramped. Her son, Greg Maestretti, figures it took him and his mom a week to produce 500 crackers there. They quickly moved to a cooperative space in West Seattle, then to a factory in Georgetown.

More than 14 years later, the company has machinery that can crank out 500 crackers in two minutes.

A good thing, too, because customers want more.

The firm, officially called "Partners, a tasteful choice company," is owned by Harris, Maestretti and his sister, Cara Figgins. They quadrupled Partners' factory and office space in December when they moved it from Georgetown to a 45,000-square-foot facility in Kent.

Bigger space will help Partners keep up with sales that soared almost 150 percent last year to between $5 million and $10 million.

Partners products are available from England to Japan to the Philippines. About 30 percent of sales are to specialty stores like Made in Washington. Larger chain customers include Trader Joe's, Costco, Target and Safeway.

Harris, 66, oversees quality control and new-product development at Partners, which gets its name from the idea that its crackers "partner" well with all foods.

She still bakes at home and brings in samples of potential new products for Maestretti and Figgins to try. "They go 'ick!' or 'yay!' or whatever, and make suggestions," Harris said.

Figgins, 40, oversees sales for Partners, a job she never expected to do when she graduated from law school in the early '90s.

"I was looking for a job and waiting to see if I'd passed the bar," Figgins said. She decided to help her mom and brother after they unexpectedly racked up 400 new customers — from fewer than 50 — at a trade show just six months after the company started.

She likes the flexibility of working for her family's company, even though it means managing alongside her kid brother.

"I think some families go around intentionally pushing each others' buttons," she said. "But we're really good at not doing that. We have a lot of respect for each other."

That respect doesn't keep Maestretti, who is 39 and oversees Partners' operations, from teasing her sometimes. During a recent family photo shoot, he brought back an embarrassing memory of her seventh-grade school picture. "You have that spinach," he said, pointing to her teeth.

— Melissa Allison

Tidbits

Starbucks will sell music by its own employees on a new CD called "Off the Clock Vol. 1: New Music from Up & Coming Starbucks Artists" for $12.95 beginning April 3. A contest for U.S. and Canadian employees attracted more than 800 original recordings from which Starbucks chose 15 tracks of folk, rock, jazz and other styles. The Seattle-based company hopes this CD will be the first in a series. — MA

Tutta Bella Neapolitan Pizzeria plans open a 6,500-square-foot location at Woodinville Village, a $200 million mixed-use development near the Chateau Ste. Michelle. The first retail stores are expected to open in 2008, according to MJR Development. Other tenants include DeLille Cellars, DiStefano Wines, Brian Carter Cellars and Washington Wine Co. — MA

Pyramid Breweries is back in compliance with Nasdaq rules after appointing David Rostov, a former chief financial officer of InfoSpace, to its board of directors. The Seattle-based craft brewery fell out of compliance last year when it named Scott Barnum as its new chief executive. Barnum had been on the company's audit committee, which must have three independent members and now, with Rostov, does again. — MA

This, under Valentine's Day gifts: NBC's "Today Show" on Wednesday demonstrated SmartMouth mouth wash products, designed to fight halitosis. Consumers apparently responded in a big way. Bellevue-based Drugstore.com said it quickly sold out of all of its SmartMouth breath- freshening products in under a day and had to order a new shipment. — MSO

Retail Report appears Fridays. Melissa Allison covers the food and beverage industry. She can be reached at 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com. Monica Soto Ouchi covers goods, services and online retail. She can be reached at 206-515-5632 or msoto@seattletimes.com.