The fifth-generation family business started in 1899 as a small stand in Columbus’ West Market and now sells wholesale fruits and vegetables to restaurants, hotels, country clubs and other customers.
For more than 50 years, the family-owned restaurant chain Tee Jaye’s Country Place has provided consistent comfort fare for its loyal customers. And the locally owned business doesn’t do it alone. Two to three times a week, often as early as 6 a.m., the Sanfillipo Produce Co. truck shows up with crates of romaine lettuce, green peppers, red onions, spinach, tomatoes, potatoes and apples to be prepared and served in the chain’s seven locations.
The partnership between the restaurant and the 124-year-old, Columbus-based produce company goes back a generation. “When I was a kid,” says Tee Jaye’s president Dayna Sokol, “we were already with Sanfillipo. My father worked with Joe Sanfillipo. We’ve never used anyone [for produce] but them. Their business is a family, and our business is a family, and that’s why the relationship has evolved over the years.”
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