Impact Local: For over 70 years, dates have been a staple in Arizona
By Nicole Newman // Photos courtesy of Sharyn and Rebecca Seitz
Established in 1951, Sphinx Date Co. Palm & Pantry has had a long history of producing some of the world’s finest dates, dried fruits and even beer. It goes something like this: In the 1920s, founder Roy Franklin discovered a new variety of date, a Black Sphinx seedling, in a neighbor’s yard. He enlisted prominent land owner Ellen Amelia Goodbody Brophy, and together, they planted the first Black Sphinx groves on her property in Arcadia, AZ.
Throughout the ‘40s and ‘50s, the team experimented with creating candies out of the sweet fruit, canning the dates, and numerous other ideas, until they finally opened a date shop in 1951. The shop’s popularity grew, drawing in famous visitors and even sending gift boxes to former presidents.
The shop has cycled through numerous owners over its long history. Today, mother-daughter team Sharyn and Rebecca Seitz continue to share the brand’s unique heritage with their customers and are steadfast supporters of locally-made food.
Nicole Newman: Sphinx Date Co. has a long history. What made you two want to buy it? What were you each doing before?
Rebecca Seitz: I’ve lived in Scottsdale my whole life and the business has been here since 1951. It’s a landmark here in town. They were looking for new owners. I live around the corner and the history draw us in. My background is in e-commerce and marketing and I saw an opportunity to bring this business to the next level. I saw it also as a place to help the local food economy. We looked into it and everything fell into place. We were the fourth family to come into the business.
Sharyn Seitz: I was working for Amtrak in D.C. as an executive and I kept asking myself, “why am I still here? I want to go back to Arizona!” So I took retirement and when we made the decision to take over, I came home! My background is in finance so it was a good match with Rebecca’s marketing background.
NN: Black Sphinx dates are pretty rare, and they are a decadent fruit. Talk to me about how Sphinx Date Co. is helping prevent the extinction of this date variety.
RS: The Black Sphinx dates were discovered by our founder in 1928. It’s the only variety native to Arizona. Now, all the trees are privately owned. We get a small supply — they are grown in small numbers — and we have a loyal following of people who come after them every year. There was a concern that they were growing extinct and were in danger. But we’ve come to find many different sources now so they are available to the public. When we came in here, the narrative was that they were going extinct. They are more of a delicate variety and making sure they are preserved correctly is important. We are one of the only direct-to-consumer suppliers of these Black Sphinx dates.
Dates kind of became an exotic thing. The date gifts really go back to the 1950s. They were sent to congress back in the ‘60s. It’s a tradition for many folks. And a lot of the items we do in our date gifts are the same things we have done for decades.
NN: You’ve added your own unique spin with a new line of salsas. Tell me more about that.
RS: Dates became popular among a certain generation. It’s really an older generation that has memories of dates because of sugar rationing during World War II. They’re used in a lot of vegan cooking, in non-traditional ways. We really wanted to show off how dates are a natural sweetener. They could be used not just in desserts but in savory ways, also. That’s where the salsa came in. The dates really add a subtle sweetness to the salsa without it adding too much of a distinct fruit flavor. You can think outside of the box with how to use dates. We have a ton of recipes that are more savory.
NN: You sell some of these savory products in the Makers Marketplace. Do you have a favorite flavor?
RS: I love the green. The green is tomatillo based. It has a bit more of a kick to it. I also love to use it as a marinade, or it’s excellent to eat out of the jar. It’s great to throw on your chicken and put on the grill. The sugar base caramelizes it a bit.
SS: It’s hard to say because I love the dates. I would say one of the small assorted date gifts. Our dates are wonderful, it’s a different quality than you’re going to get anywhere else.
RS: After people receive a gift, call and say, “I got this gift and I want to send one now.”
NN: In what other ways have you both helped Sphinx Date Co. evolve?
RS: We came in in 2012. We had very few products here. We had some honeys, jams, dates… we rebranded the businesses and added probably 300 items. We’ve added the local foods that we carry. We have salsas, flours, sauces, honey, olive oil, chile mixes, Ramona Farm’s beans, etc. So we expanded significantly to add these items. We also took our most popular gift items and created variations in terms of size. We really wanted to give different options of the favorites.
NN: Your official name is Sphinx Date Co. Palm & Pantry. Tell me more about the “pantry” you offer.
RS: I’ve always had an interest in local food and part of that comes with working in advertising with major food brands. Coming in here, [we focused on] supporting local agriculture and also local businesses. There’s two parts of exposing visitors to Arizona: the uniqueness of our region and the agricultural history in Scottsdale. We wanted to show off Arizona, support the local food chain and make these things more available to the neighborhood and not just visitors.
NN: Sphinx Date Co. is a big supporter of the local food movement. Tell me why you feel it is so important.
RS: The economic impact. You’ve got local businesses paying local taxes. Keeping the money within the community. There’s also transportation. Food traveling thousands of miles takes a lot of resources. We’re trying to tell the story of our history and heritage through food. Scottsdale became a city in 1951, the same year that we became a business, and it has changed a lot.
SS: Rebecca and I have always had the conversation that when there are things that are not right with the world, what can you do? We generally believe that what you can do is close to home and when you can effect things close to home, you can make the world better. You can impact what’s local. That’s a big part of our philosophy.
NN: How has working together effected your relationship?
SS: I believe it’s brought us closer together because we know more about each other and communicate better. I moved away to Kansas City for a while and then to Washington D.C. We planned a vacation every year but that’s not the same thing as being in the same town, working together.
RS: I would say the same. We have an opportunity to get a lot closer. Also, for us to see each other in a professional role rather than just a familial role. Usually you just go to your work and your family doesn’t know what you’re like at work. But we have the opportunity to grow something. Having to work together on something as well. As a grown adult, there’s not a lot you can build with your parents. For me, I stepped out of the daughter role a little bit and became a partner, too.
NN: What is your goal for Sphinx Date Co. in the future?
RS: We’ve just added in a local farm to do farm boxes. We want to keep adding more fresh items from local farmers and producers and expand our pantry items. There’s still a whole lot of people who don’t know about us in terms of dates. The quality, the value. It’s kind of amazing how broadly they reach. They are kind of nostalgic for people. There’s also a part of this that the store is now 70 years old and preserving this for Scottsdale is important to us. During our first years, we had a woman call us and tell us that her mother just passed away and one of the directives to her daughter was to send one last date gift to her close friends.
SS: We are driven to keep growing. I don’t know if we’ll ever be satisfied with where we are. There will be a day when I want to retire, but I want to build this for Rebecca.