Food52 Co-Founder Amanda Hesser: Cars and Food

The parallels between cars and food are not lost on Food52 co-founder and CEO Amanda Hesser. “Cars in American culture have long been this reflection of what you want your personal identity to be, and the way you eat is very much now a reflection of that as well,” she says. “How people eat and the choices they make around food is so closely tied to their values and how they perceive them and how they want to feel, and cars are very similar.”

Hesser has spent much of her life investigating and thinking deeply about the meaning of food as a cookbook author and journalist. Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, two former New York Times food editors, launched Food52 in 2009. They envisioned an online destination that would make recipes accessible to home cooks, 52 weeks out of the year (hence the name.) They invited readers to share recipes and built a loyal community that determined the most popular dishes through their votes. The founders prepared winning dishes on video, which made the recipes accessible, and core to the food empire they built.

Hesser might be best known for all things food, but cars were the family business. “It’s probably not surprising I ended up in a field that on the surface seems very different, but actually not so much,” says. When she was a kid, her father opened his first dealership that sold Chevrolets. He eventually expanded to BMWs in the Scranton, Pennsylvania area. “Cars were definitely a big part of my childhood given the business that my parents were in,” Hesser says. “My dad was a real enthusiast and I think that my siblings and I also picked up on that enthusiasm.”

Running a car dealership is not for the fainthearted. Dealers work as an intermediary between carmakers and car shoppers. Their sales are dependent on keeping people happy with a product they can’t control. Her father’s chutzpah and drive were a constant influence. She credited her entrepreneurial spirit to her father on interviews including Guy Raz’s “How I Built This.”

Much like a dealership, Food52 started as a marketplace that highlights recipes and cookware made by others, but it has expanded. This spring, Food52 acquired the Scandinavian-influenced brand Dansk, founded in a Great Neck, New York garage in the mid-century, now based in Hesser’s native Pennsylvania.

The Family Business

While home cooking was a central part of Hesser’s childhood, the car business loomed over the family, as her parents built it from the ground up. Hesser’s childhood was filled with a steady rotation of cars, highlighted by an audacious special edition Corvette and the BMWs that Hesser loved best. “I liked BMWs,” she says. “I felt aesthetically they spoke to me. At that time European cars were so different. They felt different. They smelled different. They just had a different focus on comfort and functionality, and I really liked the way they drove.”

One uncle collected vintage cars and another was a Porsche mechanic. “Cars were sort of a thing in my family.” She remembers feeling uncomfortable when people learned she was the car dealer’s kid, because access to cars was a sign of status. “Car businesses are often prominent advertisers in a community whether that's on the radio or in newspapers or television and my dad definitely was a big marketer. My friends were all aware of my family's business because there were billboards for it.”

Cars and driving culture in rural Pennsylvania dominated and were the only way to get around. “In fact, when we first moved there my mom would have to drive 45 minutes to go to the grocery store, and it was a half hour drive to go to school, so cars were necessary. Kids couldn't wait to turn 16 because it really did mean liberation.”

Her father died after she finished high school, which she has described as a devastating blow in interviews. When Hesser moved away for college and then to New York to pursue a journalism career, her relationship to car culture faded. Car ownership in New York seemed beyond her means. “The other thing about having a car in New York isn't just affording the car, but you either have to deal with a very difficult parking situation and move your car all the time, or you have to afford a parking garage. You know you've made it when you can afford a New York parking spot.”

On the Road

From all appearances, Hesser has made it. Before Covid hit, Food 52 sold a majority stake of the company for $83 million, and grew to a $100 million valuation. During the pandemic that had people working at home and cooking, Food52 doubled its revenue. On the hunt for new easy-to-learn recipes, website traffic spiked, as users sought out comfort dishes labeled genius. The recipe for crispy cheesy pan pizza from King Arthur flour earned top marks.

With success and growing children, Hesser decided at age 48 that it was time to buy a car. “It was a strange moment of accomplishment for me as I really dreamed of having a car.” She gave up her ZipCar membership and made what car to buy a family game for her then 12-year old twins. “We decided to make it a family project. My son did a bunch of research and created a spreadsheet of different car models that we generally wanted, something that could could seat optionally six people.” They combed through eight different brands, conducted multiple test drives, and narrowed it down to two car brands. “It was BMW, which you know obviously I have a fondness for just having grown up with them, and then Tesla.” The Tesla Model X won them over. “We liked the idea of trying out an electric car. It’s like an iPhone. it's a very simple design on the interior and the whole process of buying it is four decisions.”

What clinched the deal was Tesla’s tongue-in-cheek humor. “Most importantly it has a whoopee cushion feature that you make any seat in the car fart. When we went on a second test drive the person who was with us showed us that feature and we were all howling with laughter.”

For most people, buying a Tesla is guilt-free, but for Hesser, it felt like turning the back on her family’s business. It took her two years to tell her mother that she bought a Tesla. Her family still operates the dealership.

Much like how Hesser explains the relationship between food and family, the road trips she’s taken with her kids have become favorite memories. “It's become a special thing for all of us.” So far they’ve hit the Pacific Northwest, the South, the mid-Atlantic region, and taken a Western trip to Wyoming. “Sometimes my daughter will be the DJ. We sometimes play the game where you have to find letters and signs,” she says.

Hesser says these days she prefers to ride over driving on the highway. “It turns out that I have two bad qualities. I'm a really fast driver and am an easily distracted driver. I want nothing more than to get on a racetrack and just like floor it. When I lived in Europe I loved like the Autobahn and their highways.” She begged her parents as a teenager to go to race car driving school.

This summer she and her family are driving around southern California. She also took a driving trip to Martha’s Vineyard with her husband. “It was really such a nice time to catch up because it felt so unhurried and open-ended. We hadn't had that experience in a really long time. The best part of the trip was actually being in the car.”