For Ann Lindenbusch, Glass is the Family Business

Growing up, Ann Lindenbusch never expected to follow her dad into the glass business.

“I worked with Dad when I was in college,” she said. “And swore I would never do it again.”

But after several years working in corporate America, Ann, along with her brother Rob, ended up taking over Metropolitan Glass in 2000 when their father ‘s health took a turn for the worse. It was loyalty to the family, not a passion for glass, that Ann said drove her to take the reins of the company.  

“At this time the business climate is bad, and you wonder what you did when you made a decision to be a business owner, because it is not always pleasant, but I am absolutely glad I did it and kept the business in the family and kept it going,” she said.

What it is that Lindenbusch is keeping alive is more than just a glass company. She is keeping alive the entrepreneurial spirit that has been in her family for generations.

Her father and his business partner were both glass workers, working for wages, when they took a risk and opened their first store off of Big Bend in Richmond Heights. But in Ann’s family, entrepreneurism goes back even further. Her grandfather was a broom maker who founded his own broom company.  

And after a decade of running a small business, Lindenbusch said she can see why business ownership is better than working at a business owned by others.

“The challenges are bigger. The risks are bigger. There’s not the security. But at the same time, I’m in control of what I do, Rob’s in control of what he does. And when you do something and you do it well, it’s nice to be acknowledged for that, and the business’ success acknowledges that,” Lindenbush said. “And there’s much more accountability, when something goes wrong there’s no one else to pass the buck to.”

And, Lindenbush points out, when there are only six employees, the buck can’t be passed around much in the first place.

Metropolitan Glass’s biggest business is in making pieces for individual residences, and Lindenbusch does not buy into a one-size-fits-all way of thinking. Within the store is a studio, making the entire operation self-contained. Customers are encouraged to bring in pieces of furniture, and the craftsmen at Metropolitan will custom cut a piece of glass, or someone from the store will do an in-home consultation to make sure the piece of glass is cut exactly right. 

Lindenbusch stresses to potential customers that big-box stores buy their pieces of glass by the thousand, while every piece of glass at Metropolitan is customly created, and most pieces they make they only make one of.

“There are some other companies around town that have in-store capabilities, but there are very few of us left. The guys who work here are craftsmen who know how to do what they do very well, and sometimes it’s quite complex,” Lindenbusch said. “They’re cutting to an exact pattern, and they’re cutting glass, which is not very forgiving, and they do a good job.”

Metropolitan Glass is located at 14385 Manchester Rd. The original store was in Richmond Heights, but Lindenbusch's father moved the business out to Manchester in the 1970s to get away from the traffic congestion surrounding the original location.

But judging from the view of Manchester from Metropolitan’s front window, the traffic seems to have found the family business once again.