Yours Truly proves hospitality never goes out of style
By Terry Troy
It was a year of change in America. Ronald Reagan was the new president. The media was fascinated with Lady Diana Spencer. And Raiders of the Lost Ark captured people’s imaginations.
It was 1981 and four siblings of the Shibley family—Art, Jeffrey, Darlene and Larry—decided to bring a new dining concept to Northeast Ohio, specifically to a small 31-seat restaurant in the Cleveland suburb of Beachwood. Using the same business principles used in that small restaurant’s formation, 40 years later this nine-unit restaurant chain employs more than 400 folks across Northeastern Ohio.
“The driving force behind the foundation was the feeling that we could do something quickly and efficiently—but more importantly that it met the needs of our customers rather than delivering food for our own business convenience,” says Larry Shibley, who, along with his three siblings, is still involved in the day-to-day operations. “Back in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, it was uncommon that restaurants were able to accommodate guests and make special substitutions. But that was contrary to our beliefs—we weren’t brought up that way.”
So, the name Yours Truly has a double meaning. While it can be taken as a salutation where the Shibley siblings are putting their name on the restaurant as if signing a letter, it can also mean that the restaurant and its menu offerings belong to the restaurants’ many patrons.
“We had actually toyed with the idea of building up around a postal theme, and you can still see that on our menu with items like the Envelope,” says Shibley. “The problem was that the initial restaurant was in a more Victorian-style building, so the post office colors and theme really didn’t fit.”
However, the creation of a large, almost encyclopedic, menu was crucial to the restaurant’s operational strategy.
“If you go into one of our restaurants, you’ll find plenty of multi-millionaires as well as people who have to economize just to pay their bill,” says Shibley.
While the menu can be described as classic diner food with a hint of Mediterranean influence, it’s the homemade recipes and healthy choices that keep its customers coming back.
“Our mission is to satisfy the appetites of the indulgent customer or guest, while also satisfying the needs of a more healthy lifestyle,” says Shibley, whose family is Lebanese. “While I’m very familiar with Mediterranean menu preparations, the reason those items are on the menu has more to do with catering to a healthy lifestyle and using fresh ingredients.”
Which is common knowledge among Yours Truly insiders.
“They realize that when you get a bowl of chili, it doesn’t come out of a commercial commissary in Nevada,” says Shibley. “The same is true of all our soups, sauces and dressings. Our customers know that they were all made that day or the day before. They are all our own recipes. They are not copied. And we are making them as healthy as possible.”
Of course, there are some great American menu items as well, like the patty melt, which appeal more to a healthy appetite than a healthy lifestyle.
Naturally, being everything to everyone presents some operational challenges. Shibley credits the chain’s many long-term employees for Yours Truly’s ongoing success.
“In today’s marketplace, an encyclopedic menu is very difficult to orchestrate,” says Shibley. “But in our situation, because we have been doing this so long and have so many trained professionals, replicating what we have been doing at new locations is not as hard because we have a system, and we have hundreds of people oriented to it.”