A Friend’s Last Request: Veal Parmesan, Packed & Shipped to California – In The Business Of Making Memories

Last week, on Friday morning, Karen, one of our dear guests, who has seen our business grow for the past 13 years, called us and mentioned that she had a strange request. She’d be so grateful, she said, if we would try to fulfill this wish. “Can you ship veal to California,” she anxiously exclaimed. “It’s for a dying friend, who misses the veal parmesan from Fortuna’s in Niagara Falls.” We told her that we have packed and shipped many unique items before, including many perishable products; however, we did say that we had never shipped a fully cooked Italian meal across the country. We were willing to give it a shot, though, considering the circumstances.

Karen thanked us, called Fortuna’s when they opened, arranged to buy the meal from them, then brought everything back to us to have it packed and shipped, overnight, for Saturday morning delivery to her dear friend in Santa Clara, California. We nervously worked for 45 minutes, strategically packing the items in a styrofoam container, carefully wrapping each sauce container separately, then placing the last piece, a loaf of bread from DiCamillo’s Bakery, on top of everything, before closing the container. We made sure to put a layer of ice (wrapped in plastic) on the bottom of the container as well as ice packs all around. We secured everything tightly so that nothing could move inside; then, we gave it to our FedEx Express courier and prayed for the best. We had checked the weather in Memphis that night, making sure that there were no flight delays from here to California, via Memphis (most FedEx Express flights leaving from Buffalo go straight to the FedEx Worldhub in Memphis, where packages get sorted in the middle of the night and then get rerouted to their respective destination planes for delivery the next day).

On Saturday morning, we checked the tracking number for our precious package, relieved that it was showing already at the destination sort facility in California. The items arrived safely and Karen called us Monday to thank us profusely for helping to make such a memory for her and her dear friend. In fact, she wrote a heartfelt testimonial afterwards, which we’d like to share with you, for it brought us to tears and truly showed us why we do what we do everyday:

What does one do for a dear California friend who is celebrating what will most certainly be her last birthday? Why, send her veal parm from Fortuna’s and a loaf of DiCamillo’s bread, of course! While I’m patting myself on the back for this fabulous idea, the key to success was in the execution done lovingly and flawlessly by Fahim, [his team member, Nick] and his son, Yusuf. How they were able to package, ship, and have the meal arrive in time for breakfast the next day will forever be a mystery to me. The motto of Island Ship Center is “We make the mundane extraordinary” — they certainly are true to their word!