Howard Halpern, restaurateur and philanthropist, dies at 85

Howard Halpern was exposed to the world of food preparation and packing early as his parents were in the catering business.

He proceeded to earn a towering reputation as a processor and distributor of meat and seafood or “center-of-the-plate protein distribution” as longtime associate Gerard Benjamin called it.

An astute businessman and tough negotiator, Halpern’s savviness set him apart in a brutally competitive business with high costs and paper-thin profit margins, Benjamin said. But this was balanced by sincere concern for his employees, pride in and advocacy for his customers and an affinity for giving back to the community.

“He would always answer the phone on the first ring and give you all the time in the world,” said Rabbi Peter Berg of The Temple, among many who counted Halpern as a mentor.

Howard Halpern died Nov. 20 at the age of 85. His funeral service was held Nov. 24 at The Temple, followed by burial at Arlington Cemetery.

Berg said he bonded with Halpern and his wife Lynne when they picked him up at the airport in 2008, taking him back to The Temple for an initial job interview at the synagogue.

Dynamic, persuasive and positive, “he sold me both on The Temple and Atlanta in that 20-minute drive,” Berg said.

Arriving in Atlanta in 1966 by way of Miami, he started a highly regarded gourmet grocery and restaurant.

Then, he had an epiphany: “I would sure rather sell some of those tenderloins for a hundred dollars a box than a box of lettuce for two dollars,” Halpern’s son Kirk quoted him as saying.

Halpern, a New Jersey native, learned to cut beef from a friend and soon founded Buckhead Beef with five butchers in 1983.

Halpern and his team shone at buying large quantities of raw meat from packers, expertly cutting and dry-aging them, then supplying the tailored product to white-tablecloth restaurants and country clubs.

He sold the business to Sysco Corp in 1999. In 2005, he and Kirk founded Halperns’ Steaks and Seafood, with even greater success. That enterprise was sold to Gordon Food Service in 2015.

But the elder Halpern stayed on, working at Gordon until just weeks before he died.

“I think he just enjoyed it, I really do,” said Melissa Libby, owner of a restaurant public relations firm and a longtime friend. “There are people who just love business, the game of business. And then I think he loved the hospitality industry.”

Halpern’s attention to quality and customer service won him widespread accolades. If a packer supplied protein not up to his exacting standards, they were quickly dropped.

One trade publication called him “the Michael Jordan of red meat.”

“It’s amazing what Howard has done with Halperns’,” said Pano Karatassos, founder and owner of the Buckhead Life Group and a longtime customer, in a 2012 interview on the Halperns’ website. “He has probably doubled and tripled the size of his company.”

Not only did Halperns’ grow and acquire competitors; it innovated.

Benjamin said Halpern was a pioneer in embracing Cryovac, replacing buying sides of cattle with cuts of meat that could be shrink-wrapped and shipped.

Libby said Halpern’s establishment of a company test kitchen where local chefs could come in, work with the product and see new products being showcased was ahead of its time and delivered new business.

“I think what everybody understood about Howard was he had a business to run, he had to make a certain margin. But if you were having a charity dinner and needed meat or something, he was going to donate that,” she said.

His good works showed up on vastly different scales, say those around him. The Halperns endowed The Temple with its largest individual gift ever.

If an employee was struggling and Halpern got wind of it, he would help on the quiet. He served on numerous industry and nonprofit boards.

But perhaps the most telling sign of the respect in which he was held was when he walked into a company plant.

Friends and associates said workers would rush to say hello.

“He kept track of their names, their families and what was going on in their lives,“ said Benjamin. “He took a real interest in them and their careers.”