Hauling them in a little red wagon, 8-year-old Jacques Klempf sold eggs door-to-door in his 1960s Beauclerc neighborhood.
“Jacques was very entrepreneurial,” recalled customer Joanne Roobin.
She said the boy was prompt, pleasant, sweet and attentive to detail. The eggs were nice and fresh. If one was cracked, he would replace it.
That made an impression.
Klempf ran and built the business — enlisting the customers, filling orders each Saturday and collecting the money.
“He was a little salesman,” said Roobin, mother to Klempf’s friends Sonny, Jon and Todd.
Klempf bought those eggs from his father, eventually following him as president of the Jacksonville-based Dixie Egg Co.
Back in the neighborhood, he paid his dad 65 cents a dozen and sold them for a dime more. Until he wised up, he split the profits 50-50 with his older brother, who helped count the money.
“I got a little smarter each year,” Klempf said.
That venture lasted about three years but it led, as Roobin expected, to so much more.
Not wanting all eggs in one basket
A half-century later, Klempf runs Foodonics International Inc., which comprises Dixie Egg Co. and nine other companies in the egg business. Dixie Egg was founded in 1948.
The business posts revenues of more than $100 million a year from the nearly 30 million eggs a week processed. One of the biggest brands it franchises is Eggland’s Best in an exclusive territory.
The company also packs eggs for retailers’ private brands and for food service companies that redistribute to restaurants, cruise lines and other customers.
Some of those eggs come from the 3.5 million hens on the company’s farm in South Georgia, which Klempf visits every Tuesday.
He also has an egg company in Dothan, Ala.
Altogether, Dixie Egg employs about 315 people among those operations and the West Jacksonville headquarters and refrigerated warehouse at 5139 Edgewood Court.
That’s not all he does.
Klempf also ventured into the restaurant business a decade ago, when the egg business was scrambling and he wanted a business to fall back on, just in case.
He started, coincidentally, with a breakfast concept and branched out from there.
It all led to what could be Downtown’s highest-profile restaurant endeavor — the Cowford Chophouse under renovation toward a summer 2016 opening in the historic former Bostwick Building at 101 E. Bay St.
Branching out in business
Dixie Egg Co. traces its start to Klempf’s grandfather, Jacob, who moved from Poland to the United States about 1920. His first job after landing at Ellis Island was as an egg candler to test the freshness of eggs by holding them between the eye and a candle.
Jacob married Ida Fernsilver in 1921. (Klempf keeps the marriage certificate in his briefcase as a reminder of his roots.)
The elder Klempf then moved to Wisconsin and began packaging and reselling eggs bought from local farms.
Edward, the youngest of their three children, moved to St. Petersburg for military school, joined the Merchant Marine for a few years and then found a job as an egg buyer with a distribution business.
Tiring of South Florida, he was heading back to Wisconsin, when a business associate asked him to stop in Jacksonville to sell some eggs that were in cold storage.
He sold them, asked the broker to send more, built a business and, sealing the deal to stay in town, met and married Jeanne Nolan, a Jacksonville native.
The Klempfs had three children — Jacques, now 58 and his older brother, soon to turn 61, and younger sister, now 54. His siblings live in Atlanta.
Their father died in 2002 at 75. Jeanne Klempf is now 83.
If that name sounds familiar, it’s because her likeness was captured by noted Jacksonville painter and arts leader Joseph Jeffers “Jerry” Dodge, former director and chief curator of the then Cummer Gallery of Art.
Jeanne Klempf was Dodge’s favorite model, muse and close friend of 30 years and was featured in his collection of paintings, including “The Portrait of Jeanne” series.
The works were exhibited on tour and some were more revealing than others, although tastefully created.
Not every teenager at Jacksonville public schools had a mother who was a featured model for a renowned artist, and Klempf understood his unusual situation.
He also appreciated how proud his mom and dad were of the collection. “It was really cool,” he said.
Jeanne Klempf’s affinity for the arts also led to his name, which is Kevin Jacques Klempf.
“My mom chose to call me Jacques because she was enchanted by French actor Jacques Bergerac,” he said.
“I had no say. I had no say at all,” Klempf said.
The eagle has landed
Klempf was a junior at Florida State University majoring in marketing and business when his dad asked him to join the company in a management position – the 3:30 p.m.-midnight shift — and he agreed.
Like his grandfather and father, he was 21 when he immersed himself full-time into the family business.
He tried taking classes to finish his degree, but his responsibilities increased and he didn’t have time.
When Klempf was 23, the company’s general manager died and he took over at the main Westside refrigerated warehouse center as his dad worked out of an office in the Gulf Life Tower, now the Riverplace Tower.
A degree didn’t seem to matter. “I’ve learned a lot of business just by being exposed to it and dealing with banks and finance,” he said. “I’ve always been a numbers guy. I love crunching numbers.”
The company had some rough times, but survived and grew.
Klempf became president in 1993 at age 36 and CEO in 1998 when his father had to step back because of health issues.
Under Klempf’s watch, sales grew from almost $20 million in 1999 to more than $100 million now.
Klempf is president of Foodonics International, formed to encompass the 10 companies he operates in the egg business, which now operate in Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Puerto Rico.
And he’s hands-on. “I know it doesn’t look like I get my hands dirty, but I go to my farm every single Tuesday without fail. I don’t care if it’s a torrential rainstorm,” he said.
He works on the equipment, he packs eggs, he does whatever he sees is needed.
Klempf worked many of the farm’s jobs, so he knows what to look for and how to find “opportunities to improve.”
Much of the farm team has been with him 20-30 years, he said. When he arrives, they have a code: “The eagle has landed.”
He’s not sure how that started. He learned of it in a chicken house when he heard the code over a worker’s walkie-talkie.
“What are they talking about?” he asked.
“That’s you,” he was told.
Gathering good ideas
Klempf’s taste for the restaurant business started in 2005 after visiting The Original Pancake House in Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta.
He developed one at the new St. Johns Town Center, but pulled the plug in 2012 after years of losing money.
Klempf then joined with friend Chad Munsey, who introduced him to investor and entrepreneur Fraser Burns. They formed Wine Lounge Concepts LLC.
Burns said the three met “over a good meal and a great glass of wine” and had an epiphany to bring a new concept to town.
They remodeled the pancake property into the Ovinte wine lounge and restaurant, opening in late 2012.
Then came the opportunity to buy the established Bistro Aix in San Marco, which they did in July 2014. Munsey left the partnership this year to form another restaurant.
This year, Klempf and Burns invested with Mark Frisch to open Il Desco, an Italian restaurant to replace the former Pele’s Wood Fire in Riverside that Frisch owned. It should open this fall.
That came about over lunch.
Frisch, an executive with Beaver Street Fisheries and owner of the Jacksonville Armada Football Club, had known Klempf for some time. Beaver Street buys eggs from him to distribute.
They met for lunch at Pele’s and Frisch casually brought up the notion that if Klempf ever was interested in getting into that business with him, he’d love to do it.
“I didn’t think he would think anything of it and it turned into, are you serious? I might have an interest,” Frisch said.
The big deal on the corner
The big Downtown deal at Bay and Ocean streets began brewing in early 2013.
Alexandria Klempf, the oldest of Klempf’s three daughters, was working on her master’s thesis in English literature at the University of Massachusetts Boston when her dad called with a suggestion.
They usually talked daily during his drive to work, and this time the conversation focused on the Downtown Bostwick Building, which was for sale by the Bostwick family.
He told her to call the family and ask about the building. She did, and it didn’t take long for Klempf to make an offer.
He put the vacant and deteriorating structure under contract in April 2013, but the deal fell through because of the seller’s unresolved lawsuit with the building’s neighbor over water intrusion.
The city foreclosed on the property in November 2013 after the owners failed to pay fines. Foodonics Equities LLC, led by Klempf, bought the building out of foreclosure in July 2014, paying $165,100 for the two-story, 7,650-square-foot structure.
It landed a $500,000 grant for historic renovations and a $250,000 loan from the Downtown Economic Development Trust Fund.
At 27, Alex Klempf is director of operations for Forking Amazing Restaurants LLC, the company formed in May to handle marketing and operations for the restaurant ventures. She and her dad are partners in it along with Burns and Frisch.
In addition to helping to oversee Ovinte and Bistro Aix, she is working on the Cowford Chophouse, envisioned as a premier steak and seafood restaurant.
Long ago, the building housed the First Guaranty Trust & Savings Bank. One of Klempf’s first tasks was packing up more than 30 plastic bins of old papers, comprising aged mortgages, ledgers, letters and other documents he hasn’t had time to review.
Designated as a historic landmark, the building, which Klempf said was constructed about 1900, must meet restoration standards.
For example, the exterior cornices are being removed and restored. Also, concrete has been poured to stabilize the building.
After that, the rest of the interior can be demolished and rebuilt.
“It’s all going to be new on the inside because there’s little to restore,” he said.
Wood is being removed and will be repurposed to make tables. The old bank vaults are coming out, although some of their parts will be used in some fashion.
New walls will be built and new windows installed. A kitchen will be built, along with stairs and elevators. A mezzanine will wrap around the second floor. On top will be a rooftop bar, lounge and dining seating with a retractable cover.
Elkins Construction LLC is the contractor.
Klempf said he doesn’t have a final cost estimate yet, nor a chef. Final designs are being decided. It should offer more than 300 seats among the dining and bar areas on the first and second floors and rooftop.
The redevelopment is being captured on a time-lapse camera on the roof of the JAX Chamber building across Bay and Ocean streets.
“We’re going to own a beautiful building that’s restored that’s going to be the entrance to Jacksonville,” he said.
“I feel good about it. I feel really good about it.”
Working out problems
When asked why others consider him successful, Klempf counters that’s a matter of opinion.
“There have been many things I haven’t been so successful at,” he said.
One failure, which has since turned around, was trying to enter the egg business in Puerto Rico in 2007, an endeavor his father had unsuccessfully attempted earlier.
Klempf said he didn’t learn enough about employment laws in Puerto Rico and ended up in lawsuits. The business was losing money, so he shut it down in 2009.
“We should have done our homework a little better,” he said.
Later the company found a distributor with U.S. roots who is re-distributing for Dixie Egg Co., which has an employee there handling merchandising.
Then there are the lost accounts, such as the customer who kept the refrigerated eggs way too cold, affecting their quality and disagreed with Dixie Egg about the temperature.
Klempf said there have been more successes, but the failures sting. “You have these little scars everywhere,” he said.
He’s quick to attribute success to having good people on his team.
As for his personal contributions to that success, he has taken to heart what an accounting professor told students at FSU: Be a good listener.
Klempf said he has a good work ethic, tries to be fair in everything that he does and takes advantage of opportunities.
“If it works out, great. If it doesn’t, you just keep going. It’s been a long road, really,” he said.
Daughter Alex said he is approachable. “Any problem that anyone comes to him with, he has patience and he listens. He always has time for everyone,” she said.
She also said he takes action on ideas. “He doesn’t let a good idea slip away,” she said.
Burns called him “very, very smart,” which is how Klempf described his father.
Burns listed Klempf’s attributes: He is passionate about his endeavors; charitable; level-headed; exhibits a happy demeanor; and is “a person that wants what’s best for everyone in the organization.”
On top of that, Burn said, “he is a fun guy to be around.”
Balancing work and family
Klempf’s focus also is on his family.
He married his wife, Tracy, on Jan. 23 and the two have five children between them.
Klempf, previously divorced, has three daughters — Alex, Julianne, 26, and Heather, 22. Tracy Klempf has a 19-year-old daughter and a 16-year-old son.
Alex Klempf said that while growing up, her dad made breakfast and drove the girls to school every morning. “We would talk about everything,” she said.
She recalls him attending all of her activities and taking them on trips and “to cool functions.”
Just as her grandfather and father learned the business from their dads, so did she.
Before joining the restaurant operations more than two years ago, she put in time as a teenager in capacities that included her first job as a mascot egg for Eggland’s Best.
Dressed in an egg costume, she would throw out the first pitch at Jacksonville Suns games and attend supermarket grand openings.
“It was definitely not your average first job, but I loved doing anything with my dad and working with him,” she said. She later helped with routes, checking inventory and marketing.
Alex Klempf and Mark Frisch both noted Klempf’s ability to work hard while also enjoying his personal life.
“He has a good work-life balance and that is something everybody should strive for,” said Frisch, 34, who is married and also has three little daughters. “I obviously enjoy family time and it goes by fast.”
Philanthropically, Klempf donates to causes that capture his attention, usually anonymously. In a higher-profile donation in 2009, he established the Emily Jane Hilscher Student Lounge at Virginia Tech in memory of a student killed in the April 16, 2007, shootings. Hilscher was a freshman major in animal and poultry sciences.
Sometimes he learns in the news about someone in need, contacts the reporter or others involved and arranges assistance without seeking credit.
“Usually I know I have to do something if I can’t get it off my mind,” he said.
He says he and his children live everyday by “AOK,” for acts of kindness. “We all try to do one every day,” he said.
These days, Klempf and his wife participate one or two mornings each week in the Ponte Vedra Sea Turtle Patrol, an effort that runs each May through October to protect and monitor sea turtle nests.
They are residents of the neighborhood and hit the beach at 6:30 a.m. to mark and record turtle tracks. It’s his third year to volunteer for a cause he said he stumbled upon while jogging on the beach.
“One morning it was barely light out and I remember thinking what in the world was this?” he said.
They were turtle tracks from the surf to the nests in the dunes. Soon, he saw patrollers and was asked if wanted to help. He started on alternate Sundays but was “promoted” to every Tuesday.
“It’s pretty interesting,” he said. “And I figured it was also eggs.”
@MathisKb
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