Pictured left to right: Brothers Jeff, Warren and Gregg Zysman own All-Rite Construction Company, Inc., a full-service construction company based in Garfield, New Jersey.

A Panda Express restaurant built by All-Rite Construction Company, Inc.

It may be only a few miles from Garfield, New Jersey, to New York City, but going from the basement where All-Rite Construction Company, Inc. (All-Rite) was born, to building projects in the largest city in the United States, was always more a journey of dedication than distance.

Brothers Warren, Jeff and Gregg Zysman began the full-service commercial construction company in the late ‘80s in the basement of their parents’ house in New Jersey. Their father and uncle had been in business together, and when that business split up following the recession in the 1980s, Warren, Jeff and Greg stepped in, and All-Rite was launched.

“Our father had a few existing contracts at the time, which we maintained,” Warren says.

One of those contracts was with RadioShack, which provided the fledgling company with much of its work in its early years. Most of those jobs were open-store remodels, which were very time-intensive, according to Warren, requiring All-Rite to work around the store’s schedule to get the job done when business wasn’t being conducted.

“That’s how we cut our teeth, what created a niche for us,” Warren says. “We also did a lot of work for municipalities, local school systems, ‘mom-and-pop’ small businesses and offices. Over time we developed a solid client base. We realized the best way to stay busy was to go to the retail model, working with chains like RadioShack. Once you get in with someone and create a reputation, the company will be more comfortable calling on you for work in the future.”

The ‘Rite’ Way

While retail construction quickly became All-Rite’s bread and butter, the brothers continued to seek out other work. All-Rite has served clients in the urgent care, restaurant, pharmaceutical and manufacturing industries. Its ongoing relationship with RadioShack culminated in All-Rite receiving a contract to construct a fixture installation in New York City’s Times Square.

In 1993, at the suggestion of one of their contacts within RadioShack, Warren, Jeff and Gregg joined the Retail Contractors Association, a national organization founded to promote a high level of ethics and professionalism within the contractor community.

“We have a niche in retail, but it’s not all we do,” Warren says. “Restaurant work, for example, is a real pressure cooker, given everything involved in it and the tight time frame you usually have to get it done. Retail is around 60 to 70 percent of our business. It used to be 80 or 90 percent, but we’re diversifying now.”

Part of that diversification lies in other industries, part of it in an expanded portfolio of services. All-Rite has experience doing small-to-large renovations for building owners, and just completed construction of a small shopping center in New York City. “When a national or regional chain decides to change its look, every location needs to be renovated on a short timetable. All-Rite has done small renovations in multiple stores across multiple states in a single day,” Warren says.

“We’re not a one-trick pony,” he adds. “We can do roll-outs consecutively. We can work in New York City in open-store remodels and not interrupt the flow of business. Property owners know us and know they can call on us. They can trust us and know our ability and capability to get the job done.”

Steady as She Goes

All-Rite has traditionally completed 40 to 50 projects each year, Warren says, though that number is falling as the contracts the company takes on have grown larger and more complex. “We try to grow by 5 to 10 percent each year,” Warren says. “A couple of years ago we hit 20 percent for one year. As we grow, the number of projects we do goes down, and the dollar amount goes up. Over the last few years we’ve been doing more and more ground-up, new construction. Now some of the projects All-Rite takes on are dollar amounts in the low seven figures.”

The company employs about 25 people in total between its office and field superintendents. All-Rite is licensed from Maine to Florida and has done work as far west as Illinois and Texas. Recent projects include a 12,000-square-foot shopping center on Long Island, New York, a 20,000-square-foot building for a paper tube manufacturer in New Jersey and a new construction project for an AutoZone store in New Jersey, which will require the demolition of an old bank and a single-family home to clear the construction site.

“A big part of our success is having relationships with commercial brokers,” Warren says. “My brother Gregg has been working with brokers for more than 20 years, evaluating spaces for the true cost of construction and the best use of tenant improvement money—money the landlord gives back as credit to cover certain costs of construction or renovation. That brings a lot of value to our client base and is part of what distinguishes us from our competition.”

Hands-On Approach

To accommodate them, All-Rite had one of its superintendents go through Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) 500 training, This construction industry-focused coursework provides training on identifying and explaining hazards and taking proper corrective measures, and allows the authorized employee to conduct his or her own training courses.

“In addition to in-house training, our guy checks our job sites to make sure everything is done according to current safety laws,” Warren says. “He stays up-to-date on everything, developing safety plans ahead of time to make sure all work is done properly. As safety manager, he hits every job site at least once a week.”

Though All-Rite has left behind the basement where it was born, the company’s small-business, hands-on mentality remains, Warren says. The average employee at All-Rite has been with the company 10 years or more, and all three owners are deeply involved in running the company on a day-to-day basis.

“I’m proud of the challenges we’ve overcome in the last few decades,” Warren says. “Starting out in a basement and going on to work for some of the nation’s largest retailers says something.”

“We started out with small repair jobs, and now we’ve just completed a 12,000-square-foot shopping center,” he adds. “We go the extra mile for our clients. We really care and we instill that in all our employees. Our clients recognize it, and I think that’s the biggest reason for our success.”