Parkway Central junior Andrew Rubin is living his dream with State Street Spices

 (Here is my more in-depth and detailed version of a story I recently had published in West Newsmagazine. All photos were sent to me, courtesy of Andrew Rubin.)

According to 18^th century British poet William Cowper, “Variety’s the very spice of life that gives it all its flavour.”

That’s precisely what Andrew Rubin has experienced this school year. The Parkway Central junior has enjoyed an all-encompassing journey involving travel, some of the highest levels of school classes and true entrepreneurship.

But that old poem is even more fitting considering that on September 6, 2023, Rubin started his own business known as State Street Spices. It now boasts bottles of spice covering eight different flavors, each named after cities where he’s traveled thus far except for one.

Rubin would be considered an inspiration to many even without his business prowess. After all, that success followed closely on the heels of a wide variety of physical ailments throughout his young life.

“When I was younger, I had a bunch of stomach issues which I still have,” Rubin said. “I’ve had eye problems my whole life, too. When I was in (Shenandoah Valley) elementary school, I had to wear a patch over one eye for a few years because the vision was so little compared to the other eye.  I almost went blind in fifth grade and had to have a procedure to save my vision. I was about 11 years old then, the youngest in St. Louis to have that operation. I also had really bad headaches from it (a corneal disease known as keratoconus that former baseball Cardinal Tommy Pham had). That led me to being in the hospital; mostly in St. Louis Children’s downtown. I was also in a wheelchair for a couple years in middle school.”

 

Despite all those ailments, Rubin has persisted in so many ways, taking all the difficult steps leading up to his business venture.

The lifelong Chesterfield resident is not only involved in speech and debate, but belongs to three different Honor societies.  He spent the first two years of high school on Central’s Student Council. At the end of his sophomore year, Rubin won the Hugh O’Brian Leadership Award.  This year, he is the school’s president of DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America), a high school and college program for students interested in business and future entrepreneurship.

Through his schooling, Rubin acknowledged a few outstanding mentors who have helped on his business journey. One is Erin Fluchel, the Spark director who works with about 30 students in the Spark incubator program to help students grow their businesses. He also mentioned Parkway Central business teachers Sarah Hale and Julie Weindel through DECA and National Business Honor Society who Rubin deems ‘equally amazing and influential.’

“I grew up watching every episode of Shark Tank as often as possible because I love watching it, and I actually just saw it at dinner about an hour ago,” Rubin said of this May 19 interview. “A couple years ago, I participated in a summer program at SLU that was an entrepreneurship program and from there I knew I wanted to start my own business.

“I first started to think of State Street Spices around March of last year. But I didn’t start it then because you sometimes push back before starting a business because you think of all the risks involved. But when I started my junior year, I joined the Spark Incubator Program which is offered through Parkway and Rockwood. It gives you half the day on Wednesdays and Fridays to work on your business, grow your networking and work with a group of people who are also starting a new business.  That’s been a neat experience this year and I’ll also be joining it next school year. It’s been an amazing program not only to start my business, but also to learn all these important skills in the business world.”

His parents, Sarah and Phillip offered the initial few hundred dollars to get things started. From there, Andrew combined his loves of travel, cooking for his family nearly every night, and entrepreneurship.

Rubin’s been on several float trips, but that was nothing compared to many of the places he’s been over the past year or so. Included in that was the first time he had ever left the country with a mid-March trip to Calgary, Alberta Canada that included actual hiking at Banff National Park.

Regarding that trip, Jennifer Rubin Evans declared in a Facebook post, “So proud of my baby brother! As most of you know, he was literally in a wheelchair a few short years ago and we never knew if he was going to walk again. Now, he just crushed two difficult hikes on the side of a mountain in ice, snow, and mud.”

Rubin has also flown three times to Washington, DC, his favorite city.  While there, he not only toured a pair of universities, but also visited a good deal of the historical landmarks and a variety of cultural and fun tourist sites of our Nation’s Capital.

But it was his 2023 trip to Madison, WI where Rubin came up with his State Street Spices idea and the company name because he was riding down State Street at the time.

“My thought was that I wished I could try the famous foods of different cities in the comfort of my own home, without having to pay to travel. So, I thought of the idea of a spice blend company with the focus on the authenticity of each spice.  There are a lot of spices right now such as our Nashville Hot, but other major spice companies don’t necessarily focus on the quality and authenticity of what they put out with a lot of additives (such as salt) and cheap fillers.  I wanted to start a company that focuses on authenticity.  Each of our eight spice blends took roughly 40-80 hours of research for which I have a research formula. I also looked into a bunch of recipes and restaurants in each city to really narrow down the most authentic cases for each of the blends. My research looks deep into the cities to see what the other spice markets have lacked.”

Rubin added that the idea is to bring authentic flavors from throughout cities and states in this country. So, it was fitting being on a street named State Street to use that name. The only city of his eight spices he hasn’t visited is Buffalo, NY.

Since Rubin has spent so much time in hospitals, some 10% of the funds from his sales automatically go directly to buying games for the staying time of youths at local children’s hospitals. He added that playing games would have been a great distraction for him in helping take the constant focus off the gloom of being in a hospital and on the medical issues he had.

In addition to the initial funding of his business, Rubin credits his parents for their support of helping mix spices and in being beside him in the handful of events he has attended to support his business. That began with the Parkway West craft fair late last October.

A couple weeks later, Andrew’s mom added a Facebook post congratulating him on the business and noting that his then seven spices can also be added to meat, chicken, vegetables and even popcorn!!!

“Since then, I’ve invested everything and put in my own money to really grow this business,” Rubin said.  “Before I got into this, last summer I was working about 60 hours a week through two different jobs in the daycare industry. I really worked hard because I knew I wanted to start a business and they can cost a lot of money. I’ve reinvested everything I’ve made to grow my business.”

Another financial highlight along the way was winning a $500 Parkway-Spark! And Waterway Car Wash business grant.

“I’ve done five different events and I’ve sold about 500 spice jars just at those events.  On average, I sell a spice jar about every four minutes which is super neat.  I also offer samples of items like dips in which you can add the spices.  It’s been a really good experience going to those events.  However, about two months ago, I also started my online store.  So, I’ve been excited about getting some online orders to grow that part of the business. For four different weeks in the summer, I will be at West County Mall to sell some of my spices at a kiosk. I’m really excited about that being another opportunity to help grow my business. But my goal in the next few months is to get into a grocery store.  Getting into retail is a really big dream of mine. So, I would not only be going to all these events, but also have my spices in these shops.”

The State Street Spice details for the West County Mall appearance will be on the lower level near Nordstrom from June 10-16, June 24-30, July 15-21, and July 29-Aug. 4.  Prior to that, Rubin will have a June 1-2 booth at the Kimmswick Strawberry Festival.

Rubin is also thankful for some extra special free publicity he has received as of late. He reached out to St. Louis Bucket List through its Instagram page.  They featured a story on Rubin and also helped him create some helpful videos which he is set to post on his business page www.statestreetspices.com in the coming weeks.

He also sent a letter to KSDK’s Rene Knott about his business. Knott really liked the letter and responded to Rubin by email. They stayed in contact, Knott filmed an interview in which they mixed up some spices, and on May 15, Rubin was featured on the ‘My Lou’ segment.

“I’ve also actually gotten some interest from some pretty large companies both from the St. Louis area and Nashville companies,” Rubin added. “But I just want to focus on distribution and some of the other challenges of starting a business.  Being able to grow my business but not grow it too quickly has been something I’ve had challenges with. So, I’m willing to find a good balance for that. But this has all been a great experience starting my own business, to see it grow, and I’m very excited about this summer at West County Mall…not just to sell my spices, but to grow my brand and get it more out there.”

Rubin noted that, in the meanwhile, he’s looking to add one or two more spices in the coming months to add to the most recent one, L.A. Taco. The others are in alphabetical order: Buffalo Buffalo, Cincinnati Chili, Kansas City Barbecue, Memphis Barbecue, Nashville Hot, New York Steak and St. Louis Barbecue.

“There are so many cities with lots of different flavors to focus on. So, I’m looking to add more flavors, then later down the line, I would love to add some other things like dips and sauces. But that comes with a lot more legal corridors because they would be more perishable items.  So, that would be more years down the line.  Right now, I’m just focusing on adding more spice blends and continue to grow that segment of the business.”