Cupcake stores, fitness videos, apartment buildings and a historic hotel.
That’s just some of what the Roberts-Reinhardt clan has cooking.
“Being in my family, everyone is involved in real estate, the stock market and other different projects,” said Casey Reinhardt, chief creative officer of Laguna Beach-based Casey’s Cupcakes. “Being a businesswoman feels natural.”
Other members of her tight-knit Laguna Beach family include brother Doug Reinhardt, father John Reinhardt, mother Kelly Roberts and stepfather Duane Roberts.
Doug and Casey, who grew up watching their parents turn various ventures into thriving businesses, are now 20-something participants in their family’s growing business empire:
• Casey’s Cupcakes has four cupcake stores in Orange County and Riverside, satellite locations in Bloomingdale’s and designs on expanding internationally through franchises or licensing following a recent win on the Food Network’s Cupcake Wars.
• Doug Reinhardt’s RKS Inc. makes, markets and distributes the Reinhardt Kettlebell System, an in-home cardiovascular and strength training workout featuring “kettlebell” handheld weights. Doug, a one-time member of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim baseball system before a career-ending knee injury, is the marketing face of RKS much like his sister’s eponymous cupcakes gambit.
• Their father runs Reinhardt Investment Group Inc., which invests in commercial real estate, and is also involved in daily operations of RKS Inc.
• Their mother takes an active daily role in operations of the Roberts’ Mission Inn Hotel & Spa in Riverside and Casey’s Cupcakes.
• Their stepfather, the family’s financial and business guru, has an estimated personal net worth of about $350 million (see listing in OC’s Wealthiest special report, which begins on page 31). His ventures range from British food manufacturers, apartment buildings in the Southwest, land investments in the Inland Empire and a vineyard, with plans for a Pinot winery in Oregon in partnership with Kelly Roberts’ brother and sister-in-law. His Newport Beach-based Entrepreneurial Corporate Group employs about 2,000 people worldwide.
Kids First
John and Kelly split when Doug and Casey were young, but they agreed not to fight about the children.
“Kelly and I just decided to put the kids first,” Reinhardt said. “There were no formal arrangements for visiting times. I drove them to school; she picked them up. I went to baseball practice; she took Casey to dance.”
There was simply no reason for animosity, Kelly Roberts said.
“It’s a lot easier to love, be kind, inspire and motivate,” she mused.
When she remarried Reinhardt became good friends with his ex-wife’s new husband.
“It’s basically like having Warren Buffet as your friend,” Reinhardt said. “If I have a problem in business and want to figure something out, I just call Duane, and he usually has been through it before or knows about it.”
John Reinhardt has a wealth of business experience himself.
He built 300 single-family homes in the Inland Empire in the 1990s. He also invests in mobile home parks and apartment buildings and now is learning something new—the video marketing and distribution business.
RKS sells workout DVDs online and via TV infomercials.
Reinhardt and his son started the business about two years ago.
Kettlebells
The elder Reindardt was working with Owen Evans, a certified kettlebell instructor, and steered his son into the regimen. Doug Reinhardt took to it quickly.
“I was living and breathing it,” Doug said. “Whatever I do, I put full effort into it.”
He used kettlebells to train for a charity boxing match.
“I knocked the guy out,” he recalled of his first and last boxing match.
The Reinhardts have put more than $1 million into producing the videos. Doug learned that end of the business during a stint in TV, when he had a role on reality TV series The Hills.
He briefly dated series co-star Lauren Conrad, now a fashion designer, and also dated Paris Hilton. Casey also did reality TV, with a role on Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, but the siblings have little interest in a Hollywood career.
“If being a businessman brings me to TV, then I like that,” Doug said. “I don’t want to be on TV just to be on TV.”
Duane and Kelly Roberts are investors both in RKS and Casey’s Cupcakes.
Duane Roberts said RKS is “poised for extreme, rapid growth,” while Casey’s Cupcakes is “coming up to a sizable entity.”
Roberts helped Casey launch her bakery, drawing on his long and successful experience in the food business. He made his initial fortune when he sold his family’s food business, Butcher Boy Food Products Inc., to Central Soya Inc. in 1980.
“My stepfather is a food-manufacturing genius,” Casey said.
Butcher Boy was founded by his father in 1950 and supplied burgers to the first McDonald’s Corp. Roberts’ father did business with Ray Kroc, who turned McDonald’s into a fast-food empire.
Fernando’s Foods
Roberts later started another food company, Fernando’s Foods, which he sold in the late 1990s to ConAgra Foods Inc.
“I did the formulation of the food products for my companies,” he said. “I’m versed in production techniques.”
One claim to fame: inventing the frozen burrito.
Casey said she and her stepfather connected at the start.
“My stepfather is the kindest man in the world,” she said. “He has the biggest heart.”
Casey, who calls herself a homebody, has been baking since she was a kid.
“All of my cupcakes, except my flavor of the month, are my great grandmother’s recipes,” she said.
Casey opened her first Casey’s Cupcakes at her parents’ hotel in her junior year at Pepperdine University. She opened the flagship Laguna Beach store when she graduated.
The stores are a reflection of Casey: upbeat, pink and glittery.
“We like to describe it as a Hollywood Parisian feel,” she said.
The company has 160 employees.
“When I do interviews, I can tell within the first five seconds if this person is right for the company,” she said. “It’s very important to me that my employees are friendly, happy to be there and exude positivity.”
Casey’s mother does the branding. She designed the logo.
“My mother is the most brilliant woman I’ve ever met in my entire life,” Casey said. “She’s smart, hardworking, a go-getter. That’s what I want to be.”
Kelly Roberts has a degree in law and serves as chief operations officer of Historic Mission Inn Corp. in addition to her work at Casey’s Cupcakes.
“People think I have this princess queen life, and I do,” she said. “But I work really, really hard. I hate to use this word, but I do micromanage. I watch every detail of every detail of every detail.”
Her day starts around 6:30 a.m., when she gets together with her head of staff to run through all of the businesses.
“Every day I touch base with every head of every department of my hotel on every issue,” she said. “It’s putting out fires, motivating employees, making sure guests and customers are happy.”
Duane Roberts supports all of the family ventures, financially and otherwise.
“I’ve been an entrepreneur since I was a kid,” he said.
The Roberts support charities including Mary S. Roberts Pet Adoption Center, named after Roberts’ mother.
Early Start
Duane Roberts spends his days tending to an array of ventures, including leasing and building apartment buildings in Oklahoma and Texas.
“I’m just trying to go as fast as I can go,” he quipped.
He and his wife share a life occupied by daily decision-making and hours on end spent sifting through faxes, email, phone calls and FedEx arrivals.
“You have piles of paperwork you have to go through,” he said. “There are certain things on the calendar you have to deal with, and the rest of it is just what happens.”
