A Taste of on-the-Job Training
Born in Boyle Heights in 1928, he grew up poor in numerous and ever-changing locations after his parents divorced. The oppression of the Great Depression was only incidental to his perennially empty pockets. He determined early that he would have to scuffle for spending money if he was to put more than a single coin at a time in his pants. In the smaller, safer, more trusting Los Angeles of the 1930s and early ‘40s, young Bob, a waif-like child, roamed from self-created job to self-created job. Learning to devise his own stream of income, this would be valuable training for adulthood. “Bob Tepper Is Southern California’s Master Merchant,” trumpeted one journal five years ago. Early in his career, he was being proclaimed the king of the bar supply business.
Was He Ever a Novice?
As a 24—year-old in 1952, Mr. Tepper used his innovative skills to open his own bar supply business. Living in an apartment with his wife Anita and the first of their three children, he converted the stairwell of the building into a showcase for visiting buyers. Two years later, he rented a 600-square foot garage in Venice, and Tepper Bar Supply was on its way to generating millions in annual revenues with worldwide sales. No novice seemingly at any stage of his life, Mr. Tepper already had two years’ experience in the field when he graduated from Manual Arts High School.
Another Explanation
Paying respectable wages was not just a function of “coming up the way I did,” Mr. Tepper said this morning over breakfast at Junior’s deli in Westwood. Anita, his wife of 59 years, was and is a liberal. He was not. During the 30 years she worked alongside her husband in the business that today is based at 2250 Cotner Ave., West L.A., she influenced his entrepreneurial philosophy. “My wife was very liberal,” Mr. Tepper said. “She gave the two people who worked with her $20 an hour when most places were only paying $13 for what they were doing.” When Tepper Bar Supply took off early and fast in the 1950s, Mr. Tepper adjusted his own thinking and his way of doing business. “As I was making more money,” he said, “I wasn’t that much of a conservative, money-wise. I spent money. I have never been in a position, since I sold out a year and a half ago, to where all of a sudden, I don’t have to worry about all of the help.”
Postscript
“Tepper Is Better,” was the motto when the founder was running the company. Friends say Mr. Tepper always believed in the direct, personal touch in conducting business. “Another of our mottos,” he would say, “is ‘Call a.m. and receive p.m.’ If it is in stock, it is in a customer’s hands when he needs it.” Mr. Tepper said he never sacrificed quality for cost. He used to tell people, “The bitterness of poor quality is remembered long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.” In the context of the minimum wage discussion, it is important to remember that in Mr. Tepper’s heyday in the last century, he billboarded at least seven “no, sirs” that helped him govern his king-sized business:
- No salesmen.
- No distributors.
- No unions.
- No order is too small.
- No minimum order is required for maximum discount.
- No expensive advertising.
- No rebates.
Although thousands of his colleagues in commerce disagree with one of his rudimentary beliefs, Mr. Tepper supports the notion of a government-conceived and controlled minimum wage. “If they don’t,” he asks, “who will? There are certain things a government has to do” to protect vulnerable workers. He cited a hotel chain in the South where he said some workers were earning $2.95 an hour. He said he has no magic-pill cure, but he did offer one remedy. He said he only could speak for restaurants because that is the field he knows. He suggested adopting a scale formula. “Seven dollars and fifty cents is fine for the average person in the kitchen,” says Mr. Tepper. “But the waitress out here, she is making a hundred bucks a day. At some hotels, waiters, bartenders, with their tips, are making $50,000, $60,000 a year.” Some business have adopted a share-the-wealth policy. “There are restaurants,” he said, “where the waiters and waitresses split with their busboys.” Maybe that works, maybe not, he shrugs.
“There really is no fair way to do this,” Mr. Tepper concludes. As he stood to leave for work, one more distinction remained to be made. “Remember, the state is paying $7.50. The (federal) government is only paying $5.75.” With the 75-cent bump up for all California minimum-wage workers, the final question was, where would the new extra money come from? Across the table, Mr. Tepper’s friend, Bob Rosebrock, said he knew. He could have held up a mirror. When he went to his favorite breakfast restaurant on Monday, the first hours of the new law, he found, to his dismay, prices had been hiked 50 cents. Mr. Rosebrock and Mr. Tepper nodded knowingly at each other. “The next step is inflation,” they agreed.