Meet Terry and Wally August of Fancifull Fine Food and Baskets in Hollywood

Today we’d like to introduce you to Terry and Wally August.

Terry and Wally, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Fancifull is ever evolving. We started 32 years ago out of our home. It was to be something to do part-time while my kids were young, they were 3 and five at the time. It was October of 1987. I thought I’d create some cute baskets and sell them. I had been catering for a few years prior and had worked in interior design as well. My friend and I put together a quick tri-fold brochure, no photos but a nice line drawing a friend had done for me. This was before the internet – so no website, no emails, and not the ease of inserting photos we have today.

I sent out the brochure and got an order for over 200 baskets for a corporate client. The light went off and Fancifull was born. I have always been into good food so I knew I wanted our baskets to have good quality and be different than what was then, and is currently, on the market. We often created a whole moment in the basket – candles came with matches, napkins accompanied the food. It isn’t all that different today.

I look for local and sustainable producers, I am always searching, finding the best. We do keep evolving in that there always seems to be a new way to do things, new products to integrate and new customers who want things a bit differently… Vegan is a big area for us as well as kosher. With my design background, I can create different moods in the baskets so our range is wide, almost too wide to be pinpointed exactly.

Come forward about 30 years and we are still carrying quality goods but have expanded into a shop where we have fresh cheese, great wines, terrific chocolates and so much more. We have fresh flowers that we include in baskets and are a full-service florist. We hold tastings at the shop and invite our local vendors in to sample our clients and tell their stories. We grew out of our house within a year but were lucky to find a place just five blocks away so we often walk to work which is a 3400 square shop and design studio on Melrose near Gower. We laughingly call it the Fancifull Emporium because it is hard to define, but has marvelous treasures from all over the world: exquisite sheep milks cheese, fine truffles, and beautiful candles but all in a funky warehouse type atmosphere.

When I first started and I thought of having my own shop I wanted a space where someone could stop by on their way home and pick up a flower and chocolates for a partner or a company could call and order 100 baskets. It is exactly what we have.

We have corporate clients from all over including many Hollywood Studios, production houses and celebrities. Just this week we delivered 65 hotel welcome gifts for a Mortgage Company, 18 gifts for a machine company in Texas and New Home Gifts for a Credit Union in addition to some congratulation baskets to a TV show, and a host of other gifts. In the corporate world we help Human Resource departments by supplying employee gifts for new babies, Get Well and Condolence. Sales and Marketing use us to thank and apologize to clients and to launch promo campaigns. We often are used to help put together new product for a company and send it out to launch a new line. And of course, at the holidays we are a regular Santa’s workshop with many elves running all over to get the huge quantity of baskets out. We do thousands of gifts at year end.

It is a fun and noisy shop. There are about 6 of us on staff and a few temporary people here and there. Our job is to brighten someone’s day. Even though we design and delivery gifts – sometimes baskets, sometimes boxes or totes- our job is to send a message. To tell someone, they are being thought of, that someone is happy they exist. We send acknowledgments. That is the best part because it is always about good will, which is probably part of why we have done it for so long. We have had clients for over 20 years, watched their children grow and their businesses expand. We like to say we are small enough to be personal but organized enough to handle orders in the thousands. It is so true. We love getting to know our clients and helping them while also connecting them to producers who do it right. It has been a fun and enlightening career

Has it been a smooth road?
Of course, it hasn’t. Struggles include being stupid about many things. Not understanding finance, hiring too many people, not knowing how to be a boss, not watching our numbers and working within a budget. I continue to learn and grow in all ways. The recession of 2008 nearly killed us. Business dried up, our big accounts were gone or greatly reduced. Balancing it all is tough and how to market is the biggest struggle. I am such a different person now than when I started.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
I am immensely proud of the quality of our products and the personal service we provide to our clients. We have been able to maintain that as we grow and are only getting better at it because it is our passion so we build it into our systems.

We use a lot of local small business and actually small businesses from around the world. We like to say each product has a story. My husband and I have traveled extensively to meet wine makers in France, we’ve been on a tea farm in China. We want to see how things are done, smell the air, talk to the producers.

We want to use those who are doing it right – taking care of the planet, creating great products and running a sane company. It isn’t just the small ones, the big ones who do it right have even a bigger impact.

We are very democratic and believe in giving everyone a fair chance without a lot of preconceived notions. But we really do search and work to find the best. We sample everything we bring into our shop and are always expanding our product lines.

We are not cookie cutter, because who wants to send a gift that is? Custom is our specialty but our standard gifts are pretty special too. We are small enough to be personal but large enough to handle huge orders. And we play good music and eat a lot of great food too!

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Yes. Los Angeles is a large city with a lot of business. Our main business comes from corporate clients. There is a lot of competition but also a lot of business and people who can afford it.

The traffic makes hand delivery difficult but we still do it. Los Angeles could be better to small businesses. They take care of their big ones but don’t make it as easy as it could be for smaller businesses – taxes and such are tough.

It makes it tough to compete with the really big companies who have headquarters elsewhere so they can offer really reduced prices over a small company like ours. We balance it out by giving tremendous care and service to our clients.

Contact Info:

• Address: 5617 Melrose Ave. Los Angeles CA 90038
• Website: www.fancifull.com
• Phone: 323/466-7654
• Email: [email protected]

Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.