Maxine Turner

by John Blodgett

Having worked at their mother Maxine’s catering company since before high school, brothers Jeff and Aaron Turner “went kicking and screaming away” from the family business when it came time to launch their own careers.

A few years later, they returned with a business proposal. Maxine, who had started catering out of a synagogue in the early 1980s, and her husband Marv, who joined Cuisine Unlimited as an accountant in 1995, were thinking of selling the business, which Event Solutions magazine had named the top catering service in the United States.

Jeff and Aaron wanted in, and after some discussion Maxine and Marv decided they didn’t want out. They would remain, and they would bring the boys on board in the name of family unity.

Maxine had given Marv a six-month trial in 1995 to see if they could work together as a couple. She gave the boys five years to learn the ropes. “If after five years we were still a happy family and progressing as a company, then we’d discuss” bringing them in as business partners, she recalls.

Now, with four people in charge, it was Maxine’s turn to do some kicking and screaming. “Sometimes you get so set in your ways you forget what it’s like to be new and innovative,” she says. “I won’t say [their ideas] weren’t at times challenging to accept,” but she learned to find the middle ground.

Since Jeff and Aaron came back to the family business, sales have grown 25 percent every year; revenues now top $4.5 million. Maxine and Marv don’t talk as much about retirement these days.

“I see it as a rekindling of my spirit,” she says. And she feels “very blessed” that they’ve become closer as a family.