About Rooted Group
Built by an operator, not a slide deck
Rooted Group is a fractional and interim operations practice founded by Philip A. Penta, built directly on 25 years running Three Guys from Brooklyn, a 24/7 open-air market in Bay Ridge doing more than $16.5 million a year and serving roughly 12,000 customers a week.
He didn't advise on that business. He owned it and answered for every piece of it: sourcing and cold chain, merchandising, marketing, hiring, financing, two rounds of construction, and a decade-long fight with City Hall that ended with him helping pass New York City Local Law 5 of 2013.
Perishables don't forgive mistakes. A bad call shows up in the numbers the same day.
That's the standard Rooted Group operates to. Not frameworks and slide decks. An operator who's already made the expensive mistakes on his own dime and knows exactly where the cost, waste, and risk actually hide.
Currently: ongoing operations advisory for Three Guys From Brooklyn's new ownership team, alongside new engagements.
This is what 25 years of not losing looks like.
Services
Operating leadership, not another opinion
Rooted Group takes on a small number of fractional and interim engagements at a time. Seven things that show up in most of them:
Interim & Fractional Leadership
Steps in as GM, COO, or ops lead while you're between hires, or when the business isn't ready for a full-time executive yet.
P&L & Financial Operations
Full ownership of cash flow, vendor contracts, inventory, real estate, and financing. Not a review of someone else's numbers.
Turnaround & Crisis Management
Navigated 9/11's aftermath, a decade-long legal fight with the city, and COVID without missing a beat. Comfortable running toward the fire.
Brand, Digital & Community Strategy
Full rebrands, digital buildouts, and loyalty programs built and run in-house, not handed off to an agency.
Regulatory & Compliance Navigation
Ten years inside NYC's regulatory machinery, a DHS/DOL labor audit, and DOB permitting across three properties, ending in New York City Local Law 5 of 2013. Knows how city government actually moves.
People & Culture
Hiring, training, and promoting a staff of 70+ under UFCW Local 2013 contracts, with turnover most operators would envy.
AI & Automation
Builds and runs real AI tools in production, a customer-facing assistant and an internal staff tool, then applies that same lens to find what's actually worth automating in your operation.
Track Record
The work behind the firm
Rooted Group is new. The operating history behind it isn't: all of this was built and run first-hand, as owner, before the firm existed.
Rewrote the rules
Fought a ten-year legal battle with NYC's Department of Consumer Affairs over an outdated stoop-line stand ordinance that threatened to shut the business down. Retained a lobbying firm, worked with council members, testified at City Hall, and got New York City Local Law 5 of 2013 passed, ending the weekly sanitation fines for good. Separately came through a Department of Homeland Security audit, run alongside NYC's Department of Labor, intact.
Took SNAP online
Partnered with Instacart to bring online EBT SNAP ordering to customers without transportation, backed by digital ad campaigns and citywide media outreach. Result: a 40% spike in online sales within months.
Fed the neighborhood, at scale
Partnered with the NYC Health Department and The Fund for Public Health to co-create Get the Good Stuff, a SNAP matching incentive now running in supermarkets across the city, more than $3 million in produce sales attributed to it, and still ongoing. Separately, moved 40,000+ meals and roughly 48,000 pounds of produce through Rescuing Leftover Cuisine in 2024 alone.
Turned waste into savings
Built a solid-waste program from scratch in 2009: on-site Bio-EZ organic processing, a cardboard rebate deal with Metropolitan Recycling, KVAR energy systems cutting peak energy use up to 25%, and a composting partnership with a family farm. Monthly garbage costs dropped from $12–15K to $4K and stayed there for 16 years, roughly $1.5–2M in total savings.
Built the brand from scratch
Rebuilt the identity end to end with Pollen Brands: an award-winning website, new store design and signage, a new private-label line, a five-platform social program, and a loyalty database that grew to 60,000 members.
In the Press
Covered, not just self-reported
- Wall Street Journal New York Businesses Anticipate Plastic Bag Ban
- Produce Business New York Retailers Exhibit Strength During Adversity
- Produce Business 3 Guys from Brooklyn's Fresh Tradition
- Epicurious Brooklyn's 24-Hour Produce Mecca
- Politico Magazine Feature on NYC food charities
- Fresh Plaza Brooklyn's Diversity Shines Through Urban Agriculture & Retail
- The Bridge BK How an App Helps Low-Income Shoppers
- Bloomberg News New York's Hunts Point Produce Market Is at a Breaking Point (May 2024)
- Instacart / YouTube Continuing the Fight Against Food Insecurity