For over 50 years, Junior’s has been selling its desserts from its flagship store in downtown Brooklyn, and recently opened a second location in Grand Central Station.

Earlier this month, Junior’s re-launched a revised version of its e-commerce site, www.juniorscheesecake.com, , so that true connoisseurs (and new fans) can get a piece of the action even if they’re far from the Big Apple.

Kevin Rosen, President of Junior’s and grandson of Harry Rosen, is the third generation to be involved in the restaurant, and is one of only 3 people who know the secrets of their confections.

His father, Walter, has retired from the business, and his younger brother, Alan, is in charge of sales and marketing.

Though he watched the business thrive under the leadership of both his grandfather and his father, he knew that technology was the key to continued viability in the 21st century.

He began by computerizing back office operations, and continues to champion state-of-the-art solutions for the family business, ultimately putting Junior’s in cyberspace.

He began mailing the cakes, even creating the specialized packaging used to ship them, but soon realized that a more efficient system was needed in order to handle the volume of orders he was receiving.

No off-the-shelf software solution existed that met his needs, so in 1993, Kevin developed his own program that would allow him to handle mail order on a large-scale. This software has now been integrated to fulfill the orders placed on the website.

In the 1990’s, Kevin began to look to the Internet as another potential sales portal, and soon, the first incarnation of the Junior’s Cheescake website was born. His motivation was simple: Everyone was putting up websites!

He proceeded the way so many other businesses did, by contacting a large web shop that could build him a web site.

E-commerce sites were appearing at a record rate, so he was confident he could fins a company that could build a Junior’s store online.

At that time, Kevin felt that most important criterion for selecting the web design firm was simply finding the company that could provide results at the most competitive price.

He says of this decision today, "You get what you pay for."

This first attempt, Rosen feels, got them only "50% of the way there." Kevin felt that the first Junior’s site was merely a "cookie cutter site" created by a large firm that didn’t fully understand the business or the needs of the customer.

He discovered that the people he was communicating with were, generally, not the people directly responsible for building the site, and often, ideas and information were lost as they traveled down the chain of command. This was particularly frustrating to Kevin.

"I’m the type of person that likes to know exactly what’s going on. I don't have blind faith, in other words." It became clear that the initial web site didn’t address Kevin’s, or the company’s needs.

But Kevin still believed that having an online presence was important. Although his first experience with the site had mainly taught him what didn’t work, he maintains that he wouldn’t have done things any differently.

For him, the learning process had been valuable, even if the final product wasn’t as successful as he had hoped. Furthermore, he now knew what he did want from his web site, and he had a solid vision of how the site should operate.

For the redesign, Kevin worked with MobiusWEB (www.mobiusweb.net), a small New York City-based web site developer. Immediately, Kevin knew he had found a match. Because it was a small company, rather than a large production house, he found himself in direct contact with the designers and producers who would be rebuilding the site.

This also allowed him to take on a much more active role in the process: "I needed to be very involved in the development process because I wrote the software that we use to fulfill the offers. I needed to play an integral part in developing the site as far as what information is needed- both the front end and the back end."

Twelve different specialty cheescakes are offered, as well as gift certificates and collectibles. Users have the capability of creating their own personal address book on the site, so repeat orders and gift-giving can be handled in a mouse-click, and orders can be easily tracked from the site.

Placing an order at juniorscheescake.com is as easy—and perhaps more convenient— than walking into the store or using the 800-number. This ease of entry is crucial to bringing customers back to the site again and again.

"We’re 85% there," says Kevin, who is aware that evolving technology means that there will always be room for improvement. With approximately 5000 cheescakes selling every week, it is clear that Junior’s Cheescakes has the recipe for success.