Contact Us
Mailing Address Shipping Addres
Iveta Gourmet Inc. Iveta Gourmet Inc.
PO Box 376 360-C Coral Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95061 Santa Cruz, CA 95061
Warehouse Outlet Store Contact Information
Iveta Gourmet Inc. 831-423-5149 Phone
360-C Coral Street 877-712-2777 Toll-Free
Santa Cruz, CA 95060 831-423-5169 Fax
Hours: M-F 10:00 am - 3:00 pm iveta@iveta.com
Directions
As you enter Santa Cruz, take CA 1 North to CA 9
Follow the signs toward Half Moon Bay/Boulder Creek
Turn right (North) on River Street/CA 9 (the first traffic light)
Take River Street 2 blocks to Fern Street
Turn left on Fern Street go 1 block to Limekiln Street
Turn left on Limekiln go 2 blocks to the stop sign (Costco is on the right)
Go straight at the stop sign for about 1 block. Limekiln turns into Coral Street
Turn right into the parking lot at 360 Coral
We are behind the Tile and Marble Outlet
Capabilities
Iveta
Gourmet baking mixes are available in 5-color retail boxes and 3
convenient sizes of foodservice packaging. We also distribute a line
of English jams, curds and clotted cream.
We can handle any size project, from 1 to 100,000 boxes and offer private label packaging and custom flavor development.
We are EDI compliant.
Our Story
Iveta Gourmet is the latest chapter in the lives of John and Yvette
Bilanko. Born and raised in Chicago, John and Yvette met as teenagers
while living in the city’s old Pilsen area and married several years
later, in 1971.
After a hitch in the Marines, John followed the academic
path---college, graduate school and law school, finally settling in as
a corporate and international attorney.
Yvette tested the entrepreneurial waters early, spending a summer in
Italy when she was 11, making espresso in her aunt’s hotel and building
the foundation for becoming a gourmet cook. During the 60s she used her
creativity to design and sew costumes for rock bands (remember those
days?) and to start her own successful business designing,
manufacturing and selling men’s ties. She later polished those creative
skills by designing retail store displays and silk floral arrangements.
During the 70s, when Chicago was starting to gentrify, they purchased
and remodeled two Victorian apartment buildings in the now trendy
DePaul area. While tuck pointing walls, refinishing floors and painting
apartments Yvette found time to give birth to four wonderful daughters,
Lauren, Lisa, Kristen and Danielle.
A few years later it was off to Barrington in the Northwest suburbs
where they spent the next 18 years.
Soon after arriving, however, they realized that they missed the city
life and the fun of revitalizing old buildings with character. Like
most older suburbs, Barrington was ravaged by the growth of suburban
malls and was trying to revive its village center. At the edge of the
business district they found their opportunity. An abandoned frame
house where the first meeting of the village trustees was held in 1863.
Next to it was a big empty lot. Bordering the empty lot were two more
empty buildings dating from the 1860s.
They couldn’t resist. Cashing in their savings and taking on a million
dollar mortgage, they bought the entire corner and set out to remodel
the existing structures and add a new fourth building with the same
historic feel.
Three years later Woodbridge Square emerged from the rubble. Named
after Woodbridge Hawley, one of the town’s founding fathers who built
one of the original houses, the project was a mix of new stores,
offices, a restaurant and a large European-style courtyard with outside
seating that successfully preserved the historic character of the
property.
The only thing missing was an Italian espresso bar. With a little
coaxing (well, actually a lot of coaxing) Yvette practiced her espresso
making skills, taught John how to do it and together they quit their
day jobs and opened Yvette’s Espresso Bar. Fortunately, the espresso
craze was just starting and Starbuck’s had not yet staked out every
available corner location. So what started as a 600 square foot
espresso bar run by John and Yvette, with a lot of after school help
from their daughter Lauren, quickly evolved into a 2,600 square foot
coffeehouse/café with 18 employees, 70 seats (and another 30 outside
during the Summer) that became the home away from home for every age
group in the community. Even Starbucks, which later opened a block
away, couldn’t slow things down.
But what’s a coffee house without scones? Yvette knew biscotti and
croissants, but scones? She never even tasted one! So at the urging of
some of her Anglophile customers she drove to Chicago in a snow storm
to attend a gourmet food show. Although the snow scared off most of the
attendees and quite a few exhibitors, she happened upon three graduate
students in food science from the University of Illinois who formed a
company called "Creative American Mixes" to produce a line of high
quality scone and muffin mixes. They were tired of supermarket muffins
loaded with preservatives and chemical additives and scones that were
typically rock-hard and dry. Their goal was to create a line of mixes
that would appeal to contemporary consumers who wanted nutritious,
quick and easy to prepare products without the bland "health food"
taste.
To reach their goal they started with the finest available ingredients
-- like Australian crystallized ginger, Belgian chocolate, the best
dried fruits, Dutch cocoa and pure Tahitian vanilla powder. Next, they
eliminated all preservatives, food coloring, artificial ingredients and
hydrogenated vegetable oil. To complete the mix they substituted heavy
whipping cream for the butter and eggs (typically used in scones and
muffins) to create a light, moist and incredibly delicious taste.
The mixes were perfect for Yvette’s. They had a great taste and offered
a wide variety of flavors. Better yet, they were shelf-stable and
required no expensive freezer space. But best of all, they were easy to
prepare and could be baked in a tiny convection oven; just add the
cream, mix and bake -- anyone could do it. At Yvette's the scones and
muffins were literally an instant success. The aroma of fresh baked
pastries and their unusually good taste caused sales to take off,
increasing coffee and tea sales along the way. Word of the products
spread and before long packaged scone and muffin mixes were being
shipped around the country.
Yet, dark clouds were looming on the horizon. Their popularity caught
the attention of an attorney (it figures) who represented the owner of
a Chicago restaurant called “Yvette” (a chic piano bar/cocktail place)
who had ambitious plans to expand to the suburbs and thought the
coffeehouse infringed his trademark rights. Worse yet, the owners of
Creative American Mixes were embarking on different careers and the
company was floundering, on the verge of closing.
While John fought off the trademark claims, to the rescue came Mike
McMillan, a highly regarded graphic designer and loyal customer of the
coffeehouse. When Mike heard that Yvette’s late father, who spoke with
a heavy Italian accent, called Yvette “e-vay-ta”, he created a
beautiful new name and logo that not only had meaning, but honored the
memory of Yvette’s babo.
And, as things sometimes happen, the trendy new suburban “Yvette”
flopped and closed within a year while Iveta continued to prosper.
In a short time, Iveta became Creative American Mixes' largest customer
and in 1996, when the founders' career paths took different directions,
John and Yvette jumped at the chance to buy the company.
By 1998, however, they were getting restless again. Lauren was
completing her senior year at the University of Illinois and was
planning to move to New York. Lisa and Kristen were attending the
University of California at Santa Cruz and Danielle was finishing high
school and planning to leave the nest. Besides, 50 years in Chicago was
enough. And since retirement was a long way off, they thought they
might as well be someplace where it felt like they were on vacation
every day.
So, to the surprise of their friends and the astonishment of their
families, they sold everything except the scone recipes, packed their
bags and moved to California.
Santa Cruz seemed like the logical choice. The girls were nearby, there
were plenty of students and tourists to support a bigger and better
café and the geography and weather were just spectacular. While they
were planning the new business they took some funds from the sale of
the café and rented a warehouse, redesigned the scone and muffin
packaging, added a few new flavors and explored the area to find
ingredients fresh from the local orchards.
Meantime, Purdue University and some of their other old customers from
the Midwest needed scones and didn’t mind paying a little more to get
them from California; the new packaging was well received and generated
some favorable press; and customers from around the country were
expressing interest.
Deciding the new café could wait, John and Yvette hit the trade show
circuit like a couple of old circus performers.
But the real surprise was yet to come. In April 2000, Oprah launched
her new magazine and in the very first issue, on the “O List”, those
products that “Oprah thinks are just great”, were Iveta Gourmet scones.
In July the scone mix earned a spot as a finalist in the Outstanding
Baked Goods category in the prestigious Product Awards Competition held
by the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade (NASFT) the
industry's leading trade organization. And by the following January the
Chicago Tribune declared that Iveta Gourmet mixes produced a "proper"
scone that could be served with pride to company.
Today you can find Iveta Gourmet baking mixes in some of the finest
department and specialty food stores, gourmet grocers and resort
hotels, as well as coffeehouses, tearooms, bed & breakfast inns,
cafés and colleges throughout the country.
Who knows where this path will lead. But with the help of family, the
support of loyal friends and customers too numerous to name and a
little guidance from above, hopefully the next 50 years will be as much
fun as the first 50.
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