December 2013
| Business World Magazine | 167
Gritty McDuffs co-founders Stebbins, Pfeffer look back on first 25 years
W
hat they lacked in business
acumen 25 years ago, they
made up for in positivity.
And as it turned out for then-young-
sters Ed Stebbins and Richard Pfeffer
– now celebrating a quarter-century in
business with the Gritty McDuffs concept
they concocted in 1988 – it was just the
right mix. “When you’re 24 and 26 years
old, you’re full of optimism from the get-
go and you’re sure that you’re doing ev-
erything right,” a chuckling Pfeffer says
these days, while overseeing a Maine-
based operation that’s grown from a sin-
gle Portland brew pub to dual-purpose
pub/brewery facilities in two more cities.
“In a sense we were naïve, which
was great for us. We were accepted very
quickly, even though only a small group
of people actually understood what we
were doing.”Thanks to the rapid expan-
sion of craft beers to phenomenon sta-
tus within a few years after Stebbins and
Pfeffer got off the ground, the sailing has
been generally smooth ever since for the
newbies – who are now taking part in a
nationwide recognition of those who took
the plunge around the same time.
