Rochester Democrat & Chronicle
December 22, 2003

New Café Serves a Passion for Change
By Frank Bilovsky, Staff writer

A husband-and-wife team makes a dramatic career change, moving to baked goods after achieving success in another area, including a stint as an executive for a public company.

Sound familiar? It should. Gene and Suzy O’Donovan gave up successful careers in accounting nearly a decade ago to start Montana Mills Bread Co., which grew from a single-store operation in Pittsford into a chain that was acquired by Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc.

Now a former Frontier Telephone executive and her husband are following a similar path with the upscale Cole & Parks Bakery Café & Coffee Co., which opened in Victor, Ontario County, last month.

Victor native Donna Reeves-Collins is turning a lifelong passion into a livelihood that she hopes will expand into a national chain and a franchised operation.

“I started baking when I was 11 years old,” Reeves-Collins said. “That’s what led me to go to restaurant-hotel management school (at the University of New Hampshire).”

But her career detoured in her senior year in 1983 when she met William Collins. They married shortly after and returned to Rochester. She went to work for Frontier and stayed 19 years, eventually serving as president, chief operating officer and managing partner for the wireless joint venture with Verizon before becoming Frontier’s senior vice president of sales for North America.

“I had a tremendous career and never had a reason to look back,’’ she said. But the company was merged into Global Crossing Ltd., which went bankrupt, and Donna and William, a former Frontier manager, began exploring other possibilities.

“I had an opportunity to sit back and decide what I wanted to do for my next career,” Donna said. That's when she rediscovered her passion." Baking and coffee,” she said. “We started studying the industry. It wasn’t just the cookies I was interested in — that’s an $8.5 billion industry. It wasn’t just the coffee — that’s an $18.5 billion industry.” The couple wanted to create a model that could go head-to-head with Starbucks and Mrs. Fields, Panera Bread and Atlanta Bread.

“I wanted to compete with a wider spread of products so I wasn’t going head-on with any one,” Reeves-Collins said. “I wanted to come at it differently.’’

The result: Cole & Parks on Rowley Road at the intersection of Route 96 and Main Street in Victor. The café is located in a house that was built in 1813 and most recently housed Peggy’s Bridal, where Reeves-Collins had bought all her prom dresses.

The site has been completely renovated. It filled all the Collinses’ needs — a high traffic count, the morning commuter side of the road, at a traffic light, they said. And they have turned it into a comfortable, elegant though understated café that offers its customers fresh-baked cookies, scones, muffins and other baked goods, soups, panini sandwiches, wraps, ice cream and coffee beverages.

The sales area also offers several high-end packaged items, including milk products from Pittsford Dairy and some private-label wares. It employs about 25 full- and part-time workers. Upstairs is a meeting room that can hold 16 people and includes free wireless Internet access, a whiteboard and a TV with VCR and DVD capabilities.Drive-through service also is available for time-compressed commuters.

The owners are following an ambitious expansion timetable." We have a very detailed five-year business plan,’’ Reeves-Collins said. “We tell our investors when we start to evaluate franchising. We want to pick good locations. We’re going to do it smart. We don’t want to grow for growth’s sake but for revenue and profitability’s sakes.”

They plan to expand first within the Rochester market, then look for contiguous areas. After five years, they hope to have about 25 company-owned locations and about the same number of franchises.

Rochester Institute of Technology business professor Robert Barbato, whose father was a local restaurateur, is preaching patience. He suggests that the Collinses not grow too quickly.

“It’s premature to have that as your business model,” he said. “What they should be thinking about doing is one thing and one thing alone — making the cash register ring where they are now and demonstrating success.” He is especially concerned about the franchising idea. “It bothers me for this reason: This is not a successful business product yet,” he said.

Donna Reeves-Collins thinks success is inevitable, though, once her café’s products get their proper exposure. “Our repeat business is phenomenal. We have people who come in three times a day.” Mendon’s Jeff Hoffman, who was waiting for a cup of coffee, said he discovered Cole & Parks shortly after it opened. “I was just driving by,” he said. “Now I’m in here almost every day. Excellent business plan. Good products. The coffee is really good. Really, really good.”

“We have a very detailed five-year business plan,’’ Reeves-Collins said. “We tell our investors when we start to evaluate franchising. We want to pick good locations. We’re going to do it smart. We don’t want to grow for growth’s sake but for revenue and profitability’s sakes.” They plan to expand first within the Rochester market, then look for contiguous areas. After five years, they hope to have about 25 company-owned locations and about the same number of franchises.