Businesses spawned in disaster prospered

Francine Brevetti, Tim Simmers

Besides displacing people, the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906 uprooted businesses and created new ones. Companies and entrepreneurs who could no longer operate in the devastation that remained of San Francisco migrated to the East Bay and to San Mateo County. They strove to start again or to create new enterprises to serve the relocated thousands who had been forced to move to those areas. Here are the stories of four of them that survived and thrived for a century.

Saroni Total Food Ingredients In 1856, Louis Saroni established an umbrella company called Pacific Coast Candy Co., which manufactured and sold confections, chewing gum and crackers. According to company annals, Louis was "the first on the West Coast to use steam to produce confectionery products."

Fifty years later, on April 18, 1906, the great quake leveled the Saroni factories and family residence situated on Van Ness Avenue near Sutter Street in what is now downtown San Francisco.

Because firefighters were forcing residents to evacuate buildings they wanted to dynamite, the Saroni family was driven from its home at bayonet point. Louis and his family boarded a horse-drawn truck piled with rescued household goods, and disembarked from Fort Mason to settle in Oakland.

Two days later, on April 20, Alfred Saroni established Saroni Sugar & Rice near the Oakland Embarcadero with his father Louis' backing. The company processed and sold sugar and other foodstuffs wholesale to industrial users and retailers.

"We started the same time C&H Sugar was formed, and we are their No. 1 distributor in Northern California," said Richard Garabedian, the current Saroni president and chief executive officer.

C&H Sugar Co. was founded in Crockett in 1906 to refine raw cane sugar from Hawaii.

Al Sr. with son Al Jr. stayed at Saroni's helm through the early 1950s. Al Jr., in a partnership, formed Liquid Sugars Inc. to complement Saroni.

In 1995, the Saroni family sold its food businesses to Garabedian, a food industry veteran, and other investors. Garabedian eventually bought control of the company.

Under Garabedian's leadership, Saroni Total Food Ingredients and its Veg-Oil Division remains a privately held company -- one that is approaching 100 million pounds in shipments a year. Today the 25- employee company occupies a 230,000-square-foot building and is accessed by 75,000 square feet of docking space. Its Web site is www.saronitotalfoods.com.

Besides supplying sweeteners, flowers, oils and starches, the company organizes and delivers to customers as a one-stop, just-in- time provisioner.

The company also started its own label of vegetable oils, Veg- Oil, which serves bakers, canners and confectioners in Northern California.

While Garabedian is keeping his eye on the opportunities in the ethanol and diesel fuel markets, he likes to say that "Saroni provides all the ingredients necessary to make a muffin."

Some of Saroni's major customers are well-known brand names such as Otis Spunkmeyer, Jelly Belly and Mother's Cookies, which last month said it will close its 230-employee Oakland bakery and distribution center May 31 and move production to plants in Ohio and Canada.

Garabedian also takes pride in his participation in the Economic Development Alliance for Business as an advocate for Alameda County's food processors, of which he says there are 200 today.

Takahashi Market When Japanese immigrant Tokutaro Takahashi saw how devastating the 1906 earthquake was in San Francisco, he decided right away to open a general merchandise store in San Mateo to serve the Japanese community.

He took a boat ride in the Bay around San Francisco and was shocked by the damage.

He knew he wasn't going back to work at the salt ponds in the Bay anymore and opened his store in late April.

Takahashi used a horse and buggy to deliver work jeans, boots, shirts and other merchandise to customers who didn't buy from the storefront.

He rented a building that still stands on the corner of Second and Claremont streets on the edge of downtown San Mateo.

To serve Japanese farmers in Pescadero, he took the horse and buggy on two- or three-day trips to deliver goods.

"My father told me how tough it was in the old days," said Kenge Takahashi, 85, son of Tokutaro. "He kept a horse in the field and put the buggy in a small garage."

Kenge worked with his father for years in the store.

In the 1930s, his father added more food to serve the Japanese community.

World War II brought difficult times. The Takahashi family was notified in 1942 that everyone would have to go live in an internment camp. First, they went to the Tanforan race tracks and stayed in the stables there before they were transferred to Utah.

The business was shut down during World War II. Kenge served in the U.S. Army during the war for two years, and he reopened the business after the war was over.

Kenge eventually took over the business for his father, who got sick and had a stroke after World War II.

Kenge was born, raised and still lives in a house across the street from the market, which is now half a block down Claremont Street from the original general store.

In the 1950s and'60s, the market sold lots of bait and tackle, and expanded to add more Asian and Hawaiian foods to go along with the Japanese foods, according to Gene Takahashi, 54, Kenge's son, who now manages the store.

Kenge retired a couple of years ago, and Gene now gets help in the store from his brother Jack, sisters Nora and Anne, and his son Bobby.

The store shifted away from Chinese food in the 1990s, when big Asian supermarkets such as 99 Ranch Market opened.

"It's been hard to keep a small business going, but we try to emphasize customer service and have a lot of loyal customers," said Gene Takahashi, who noted that he serves many third-generation customers.

Gene also tries to carry goods other stores don't stock, like fresh poi (he has three brands) and fresh Kalua pork. He's also opening a kitchen in the store soon that will serve Japanese and Hawaiian takeout food.

"That's going to help business," he said. "People are eating more prepared food these days."

Coldwell Banker No doubt about it, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 leveled a lot of valuable real estate. Within days, a real estate business that was to become Coldwell Banker had set up shop on Post Street in the devastated city.

Colbert Coldwell, a Bay Area native, was only 23 years old with two years of real estate experience when he helped found the firm, then known as Tucker, Lynch & Coldwell. The firm helped rebuild San Francisco by providing professional real estate transactions based on ethical principles to businesses following the earthquake.

Even before the quake, fraud was taking place in real estate. The quake made things worse, since many property records were destroyed in the fire that followed.

In 1913, Coldwell recruited salesman Benjamin Arthur Banker to join the firm after the two other founders left. Within a year, Banker was Coldwell's partner.

Today, Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corp. is the country's largest residential real estate brokerage and the oldest national brokerage. It has more than 3,900 residential and commercial real estate offices and more than 126,000 sales associates in 26 countries and territories.

And although company headquarters are in New Jersey, it retains a strong presence in the Bay Area, where it took root. Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, based in San Ramon, is the largest residential brokerage in Northern California.

"Marking 100 years in business is an incredible milestone," said Avram Goldman, president of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, San Francisco Bay Area. "The evolution of Coldwell Banker was started in San Francisco."

In its first half century, Coldwell Banker focused mostly on commercial real estate and played a major role in developing regional shopping centers. It moved into residential real estate in 1968.

"Many of the company's clients wanted us to also serve their residential needs," Goldman said. "Like many companies, we keep evolving."

Today, most of Coldwell Banker's business is residential.

Over the years, Coldwell Banker bought smaller firms before it was acquired by others, including Sears, Roebuck & Co. In 1996, it became a subsidiary of New York-based Cendant Corp.

"The name is the same. The mission is the same," Goldman said.

In recognition of its 100th anniversary, Coldwell Banker is sponsoring the building of 100 Habitat for Humanity homes for low- income people across the country, including eight in the Bay Area.

Ratcliff architects The Ratcliff dynasty in architecture began in 1906 with a ready market -- thousands of people dislocated by the earthquake who needed domiciles in the East Bay.

Walter Ratcliff, a chemistry student at the University of California, Berkeley, began designing houses on speculation and started his own architectural firm in Berkeley. The Ratcliff firm is now based in Emeryville and employs 70 design professionals.

There has been an unbroken succession from Walter to his son Robert and the third-generation, Christopher "Kit" Ratcliff, its current principal and chief executive officer.

As Walter gained more repute, he started consulting with the city of Berkeley, taking on municipal projects such as schools and fire stations. Among his crowning achievements are the Mills College music building in Oakland and Berkeley's Chamber of Commerce building.

He also established deep relationships with the University of California, designing many of its buildings as well as fraternity and sorority houses.

After recovering from a dip in business during the Depression, Walter started Fidelity Savings in Berkeley.

"They were making loans to people building houses," in effect, making money both ways, Kit Ratcliff said.

When Robert returned from the war and joined the firm, he introduced the modern movement to the firm and its partners. Kit's father took on larger kinds of work, building a name for the firm in health care.

Kit never felt pressured to be an architect. But as the third of six children, he found design a refuge in which he created his own world.

Today's chief of the firm feels there are two kinds of architects. There's the one who follows after the model of Johann Sebastian Bach -- the man who feels he is acting as a channel for the divine by serving the public. Then there's the later paradigm of the artist's ego and personality as the thing being fashioned for admiration.

"I'm in the J.S. Bach mode. I'm among those who enjoy the personal expression, but our goal is to serve. That's the deeper satisfaction," he said.

Currently, Ratcliff sees his mission in the service of the planet, preserving its sustainability and educating the public about Earth's vulnerability.

"I've got to get out there and be an influence somewhere. I've been privileged, so now I have to go and give back," Ratcliff said.

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