Chicken Salad & Consistency: Company’s Coming
When it comes to High Point businesses that have become a part of our citizens’ everyday lives, few have been as longstanding as Company’s Coming. It’s a household name in High Point: the place you’ll go to grab a meal for a party, the place you’ll get lunch for a day trip to the beach or the mountains, the place you’ll pick up a meal to deliver to a friend who has recently celebrated a birth or mourned a loss.
Famous for their chicken salad and pot pies – although they have more than 30 pre-prepared entrees, soups, desserts, and more than 15 spreads and salads! – Company’s Coming has been serving home-cooked meals to High Point for more than three decades. And it all started when a few stay-at-home moms decided to put their skills to work, more than 40 years ago now.
Back then, Company’s Coming founder, Monte Smith, was just a South Carolina girl who married a doctor and moved to High Point. Alongside three other women – all of whom worked as homemakers in their High Point homes – Monte began catering for High Point Market. Cooking out of the old Boy Scout kitchen in Jamestown, Monte and the women whipped up meals for Market goers that soon earned them repeat customers. Later, Monte and one of the women opened up the catering side of their business, Company’s Coming, as well as Hamilton Street Café, an upscale restaurant in downtown High Point.
Eventually, Monte took on all of Company’s Coming, moving to their original location on North Main Street, where the business stood for 37 years. It was then that she started adding the pre-prepared frozen meals and salads the company is known for today. This year, Company’s Coming opened the doors to their new location at 1800 N. Main Street.
So how did Company’s Coming grow from a few stay-at-home moms in a rented kitchen to a well-loved business in High Point?
“The business really scaled on its own,” says Clif Smith. Clif, and his brother, Stuart, are Monte’s sons, the ones who now handle the day-to-day operations of Company’s Coming. While both of Monte’s sons moved away from High Point, they eventually returned to operate Company’s Coming.
“I’m sure I said I'd never do this in a million years when I was in high school,” Clif laughs today. But after graduating from college and wondering what he would do with his degree, he decided to go to culinary school with the plan to return to his mother’s business. His brother, Stuart, who once worked for a restaurant in the Virgin Islands made a similar return to the business.
“It was natural, even though it wasn’t planned,” Clif says. “Now it’s been 20 plus years.”
Even with a new location, a growing customer base, and the daily production of hundreds of meals, Clif and Stuart can still count on the community’s love and word of mouth support as the biggest driver of their growth.
For years, the Market shoppers who would eat at Hamilton Street Café or enjoy Monte’s food at Market would load up on prepared foods from Company’s Coming on their way out of High Point. Some even found themselves making a special trip to pick up Company’s Coming favorites on the Market off months and turning their out-of-town friends onto Company’s Coming.
At the heart of that community was always Monte, a determined businesswoman and beloved community member.
“When Mom first started out, people just knew her,” Clif says. “Before Stuart and I got more involved, people just called it, ‘Monte’s.”
And Monte’s it was. Clif notes that the business has always been his mom’s baby. For that reason, she’s always instilled in her sons and her staff that quality is the key to the business’s success.
“She’s a hard worker, and she’s protected that business over the years,” Clif says. “She’s kept it to a certain standard. She made sure we treat the customers a certain way and that the employees continue what she’s built without getting complacent.”
And those employees are the reason Clif says Company’s Coming has maintained a reputation for consistently delicious food for the last 37 years.
“Our crew is the reason we're who we are right now,” he says, noting some of their staff have been with them almost the whole time Company’s Coming has been open. “We can’t have the consistency without them.”
That consistency and quality mean getting the same great product at the same great value every time you walk through the door of Company’s Coming. At times, Clif has wondered if their product is “too” consistent, joking that after 37 years, some people have yet to venture out from their acclaimed chicken pot pie and chicken salad.
“Will you try something else?” he jokingly asks loyal customers. “We do still come up with some new recipes, but we have to balance a few new things without running out of the things people expect us to have at all times.”
From poppy seed chicken to eggplant parmesan, to cranberry almond goat cheese spread, to jalapeño pimento and cheese – the recipes, both old and new, come from a variety of places.
“Some recipes came from Mom plowing through a million cookbooks,” Clif teases, “which we, fortunately, scaled back when we moved.”
After 37 years at their location on the corner of North Main Street and Peachtree Drive, Company’s Coming made the switch that Clif says they should have made ten years ago. With the volume of output at Company’s Coming – they’re making anywhere for 60 to 70 chicken pot pies a day! – the team was ready for more kitchen space. After a switch in landlords, Clif and Stuart decided to use the opportunity to expand their production kitchen and open up more retail space for their customers.
The new space offers the kitchen staff plenty of room to spread out, more ovens for baking, and more counters for production. And while the space may look different, what has stayed the same is the quality of the food that Company’s Coming brings to our city, our parties, our holidays, and our homes.
Explore more of Company’s Coming online or visit their new location 1800 N. Main St., Suite 102
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