Burton I. Saltzman, the former CEO and chairman of Dave’s Markets, has died at the age of 88.
Born in 1937, Saltzman, who went by Burt, worked in the family grocery business run by his grandfather, Alex, and father, Dave, the namesake of the company. They started with a produce store on Payne Avenue in what is now Cleveland’s AsiaTown neighborhood, where they would later open their first large grocery store.
Burt Saltzman spent 30 years as the CEO of Dave’s Markets. He oversaw an expansion of the supermarket chain at a time when many of Cleveland’s markets and grocery stores were disappearing, according to Anthony Brancatelli, who was a council member for Ward 12 when it encompassed much of Slavic Village.
“We had a number of small markets as well as medium and large markets, the old Tops and Fazio’s, Pick-N-Pay,” Brancatelli said. “A number of those were in the Slavic Village community, and they all went away, basically one by one as they merged and became much larger grocers.”
Brancatelli said he worked with Saltzman to open a Dave’s in Slavic Village on Harvard Avenue.
“We would have been a food desert, [if not] for that, because we lost all the fresh produce stands and the old-time markets that we used to have,” Brancatelli said.
In addition to opening more grocery stores, Saltzman would frequently fund and participate in charity efforts and community events around the Cleveland area. Another former council member, Joe Cimperman, said Saltzman passed those values of customer service and dedication to other family members running the business.
“His family's just like him,” Cimperman said. “He didn't just leave as a singular, beautiful, magnificent soul. He imbued his Burt-ness in his kids and his grandkids, in his store managers.”
On one occasion, Cimperman said, Saltzman offered to pay for lunch for a group of downtown businesspeople who were working with residents experiencing homelessness.
“Burt would say to me, ‘do something about it,’” Cimperman said, “and unlike most businesses, he wasn't saying ‘throw people in jail.’ He was saying, ‘let's figure out a way to help the people so they aren't homeless anymore.’”
Cimperman said Saltzman hired some of those unhoused residents at that first meeting, and they worked their way up through the company.
The company currently has 16 stores, including Lucky’s Market, in and around Cleveland, in Akron and in Columbus. Burt Saltzman later handed off running the business to his children and grandchildren. But both Brancatelli and Cimperman say he was never a hands-off individual, preferring to be in the store assisting customers and his employees when he could.
"If you were to say to somebody, ‘find the CEO of this corporation — this corporation employs probably 1,500 to 2,000 people, good jobs, has a regional presence, the name of the CEO is Bert Saltzman — go find him,’ most people would go to the office, and [they] would never find him,” Cimperman said. “He was never in the office. He was always wearing a short white sleeve dress shirt, a black tie, and either black corduroy pants or black jeans, either standing at the cash register — the first one — or bagging. Or better yet, he would actually take the grocery cart to the elderly person's car for them. There's a great saying that they don't make them like that anymore.”