Tradition carries Rosemary's Family Creamery to 25 years
| Wednesday, Nov 25 2009 02:25 PM
Last Updated Wednesday, Nov 25 2009 02:27 PM
Images
Henry A. Barrios / The Californian From left, Katie Tate, Frank De Marco, Rosemary De Marco, Roseanne Brandon, and Patrick Brandon holding baby Noelle, pose for a picture at Rosemary's Family Creamery. Frank and Rosemary open the business 25 years ago.
Few of the many local traditions that revolve around Rosemary's Family Creamery go back further than Cal State Bakersfield honors students' annual ritual of meeting up at the F Street restaurant following the Kern Shakespeare Festival.
Over the last 25 years, preparations have become routine: Invite the actors and call ahead to let staff know it'll be a late night.
"We take over the whole place. It's just filled with about 80 happy smiling honors students eating ice cream," said CSUB honors program director Michael Flachmann.
A quarter of a century since its founding, Rosemary's still produces that kind of excitement. It draws teams and clubs of different Bakersfield schools for an evening of casual talk and treats.
So it is for students of All Star Dance Academy. Every year after recitals the dancers gather to hang out and make the evening "last a little longer, perhaps," academy owner Helane Bean said.
Clearly tradition has made for good business at Rosemary's -- in more ways than one. Its sense of history extends beyond customer habits to the family that opened the place on Nov. 27, 1984, and even to employees.
On the walls of Rosemary's are photos of crews past, going back to the 1980s. Some former employees' names grace menu items ("Kelly's Tin Roof," "Joey's Petite Dish" and others). And talk about honoring the past: Two current staff members are children of employees past.
Much of this is the doing of founders Frank and Rosemary DeMarco. Mostly retired now, they come back to check on the place periodically. But lately they're able to rest easy, and travel, now that they've passed on the tradition to their daughters and grandson, who together run the place.
This smooth generational transition belies the business's unlikely survival. Rosemary's opened as a franchise -- something to keep the couple busy after Frank called an end to 35 years in the newspaper business.
"This was an opportunity I couldn't pass up," Frank said.
Of the original 27 franchisees, only Rosemary's remains. The sudden closure of the franchise was a mixed blessing for the DeMarcos: It left them with none of the advertising help they had been promised, but they also didn't have to pay a franchise fee.
That was followed by decades of 15 hour days, seven days a week. Customers would ask the DeMarcos when they planned to get out.
"Now we're out," Rosemary said with a laugh.
Frank and Rosemary, now in their late 70s, have taken to traveling. Just back from five weeks on the East Coast, they plan to celebrate their 60th anniversary, coming Dec. 31, in Hawaii. Then it's off to Cairo and the Nile.
They leave with no regrets. And in fact, their legacy grows: On Nov. 3 the DeMarcos celebrated the birth of their great-granddaughter, Noelle Rose.
And so the tradition continues.
"Now," Rosemary said, "we're four generations."
