I seem to have worked in the food service throughout my entire life. When I was a teenager I worked for the Harvest House cafeteria. I also worked for Gino’s which was a fast food hamburger place. I also worked at a nursery.

Then, when I was in college, I worked for the round table pizza parlor during the school year and for American Can company during summers.

At the round table I started as a freshman. I just walked in the door to say hello. Although I was only nineteen and my brother told me that they never hired anyone under age 21. The manager at the restaurant told me: “Urbanski, I almost fired you before I hired you!”

During my freshman and sophomore year I worked part time. During my junior year I became the assistant manager and worked fulltime. During my senior year I became the manager.

After graduation I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do when I grew up. I went to work for Marriott Corporation for about a year or so. I was a banquet and catering manager.

My brother got me into the pizza business and we moved to Findlay, Ohio and opened up the Rocking U Pizza Emporium. That was in September of 1977. I owned that until the spring of 1999.

I got it back and ran it for a few more years and then just sold it a year ago in 2005.

In 1993, I bought an existing catering facility and transformed it into Urbanski catering company. From 1993 through 1999 we had those two businesses.

Oh yes, I must digress. Back in 1981 my brother and I also opened up a running shoe store. We ran that from 1981 through 1983. It was called the River Bend running company. We were on the cutting edge of the running business.

We sold the restaurant last year and I chose to get out of the restaurant and catering business. I started to figure out what I wanted to be all over again. At the age of 51 I became the executive director of the Hancock county agency on aging. That’s where I am today!

My brother and I had tried to buy a round table pizza franchise in Tucson. There were three of us: myself, my brother, and a friend of his who would put up the money.

But before we got our franchise someone else bought the rights to the states of Arizona and Nevada. Mike was a grade school teacher, and teaching didn’t pay the bills for a wife and two kids. He asked me if we wanted to go into business together. Since we couldn’t get a franchise we moved back to Findlay where we could go independent. Plus we had the ability to borrow money because we had a lot of family here.

That’s how we ended up here. The ironic thing about all this happened about a year earlier. I just happen to be in Findlay visiting. I met a friend of my parents who owned a restaurant supply business. He told me that he had gone to a really neat pizza place in Phoenix with a pipe organ and other stuff.

He told me: “I would be willing to set you up in business if you would move back to Findlay.”

At that point I was still the manager of the round table in college. I told him: “bob I want to finish college and get my degree and secondly I don’t envision myself moving back to the Midwest.”

It was less than 24 months later that I was opening my own shop.

One of the things I’ve learned obviously is to never say never.

The day we opened the Rocking U restaurant, we had people lined up out the door waiting to come in. I moved back to Finley in March of 1977. My brother was still teaching and moved back in June of that year.

He must have had a lot of faith because he let me do all of the kitchen design work with my restaurant supply friend Bob. I bought a duplex And Jackie and I lived on one side and Mike and his family lived on the other.

We took over the place that had been a local steakhouse and nightspot. The prior owners had squandered all the money. One day the bank came in and just closed them down.

The first time we walked in there was still food in the kitchen, there was a cone of grease about 2ft. high behind the fryer. We just got shovels and a dump truck and clean all that crap out of there. We got it the place.

We open our doors in September of 1977, and as I say the first day was so crazy! We were open from 11:00 AM to 1:00 AM. Plus all the food prepared for the next day as well. So that first night after we closed one of the new employees and I stayed up all night and prepped food to reopen the next day.

We went home at about six and the morning, had a nap and came back before lunch.

That was our first day in business!

We grew like a white elephant. Our original plan was to be the next Pizza Hut of the United States. We wanted to franchise the business. We had visions of making our corporate headquarters in the Atlanta area. We thought we’d concentrate on the Midwest and East Coast. Those people had never had our West Coast style of pizza.

We were the first people in the Midwest to come up with things such as fresh toppings: peppers, mushrooms, onions, ground beef, and sausage. Back here everything was canned. It’s just the style.

Now of course everyone is using fresh products but back then it was unheard of. We had a very distinctive flavor.

At the times there weren’t very many restaurants in Findlay so if you wanted to go out to eat you generally left town. So we opened in 1977. In 1978 we added a full-service bar and expanded the restaurant by 30%. In 1979 we opened a second store which was the carrying out and delivery place. In 1981 we expanded the original business to see 250 people. We were the hottest place in town!

It was at that time that we also open up the running shoe store. So we were into a lot of different, fun things.

In 1984 Mike left the business. I learned a very valuable lesson. He was six years older than I was and everybody used to say that I couldn’t run the business without his help. Of course, I wanted to prove them wrong. So I spent the next four or five years working 100 hours a week or more. I go in at 7:00 AM and leave it at about 11:00 PM.

So things grow and evolve. I had a good staff and a good management team.

We did some changes over the years. We had moved. We bought another building and moved our operation to the other side of town. We eventually sold that to help facilitate a total remodel of the restaurant.

As time went on we eventually got into the full-service dinner business. We got into off-premise catering.

We just felt that there would be a lot of synergies in buying this banquet hall. So in 1993 we bought what was called the Cheshire house and turned it into Urbanski catering.

We could serve about 300 people. We did that from 1993 through 2006.

Looking back, my brother and I thought we knew all about the business. Our mom had come in as our partner for what was supposed to be six months. She made a homemade soups and salads and things like that. My mom and my dad have remained my partners ever since. Mom worked with me for fourteen years.

When Mike left my mom stayed on. My mom and my aunt used to come in every morning and make the soups and do all the salads. My dad eventually came in and did the books for us.

My wife Jackie worked as a waitress and did a bunch of other stuff. In the nineteen nineties she took over as office manager and did the payroll and book work when my dad stopped.