By 5 a.m., Elizabeth Klik is up with the rest of the Red Fox Navy, either staring at a wall on a rowing machine or pulling an oar through ice-cold water. Neither are most college students’ ideal definition of fun. By late morning, she’s back on campus: classes, homework, lift, the usual. Oh, and somehow she’s also running a pickle company.
Ittabit’s Pickles isn’t a dorm-room startup or a business-class project. Klik, a rising senior on Marist’s women’s rowing team, founded the small-batch craft pickle brand at eight years old, selling jars first outside her house, then at farmers markets and now in grocery stores across the Northeast. While most college students are figuring out how to do laundry, Klik is negotiating deals with ShopRite on her self-proclaimed “pickle phone,” a second phone dedicated entirely to running her pickle company. She describes it, lovingly, as her “second life.”
It started on a street in Fairfield, Connecticut when Klik was eight. She had an idea, like most kids her age have when they want to make money, to create a lemonade stand. So, she also asked her dad to throw in a few jars of pickles made from an old Polish family recipe.
“Nobody really wanted the lemonade,” Klik said. “Unfortunately, they just wanted the pickles.”
Within days, people started asking Klik or one of her three other siblings — Sara, Sinead and Aidan — “Where’s the pickle girl?”
The name is as personal and family-driven as the business itself. “Ittabit” is how her siblings once pronounced “Elizabeth,” and the nickname stuck. To this day, her family calls her nothing else unless, of course, she’s in trouble.
The lemonade stand turned into a pickle stand, which led to appearances at farmer’s markets. The farmer’s markets called for a commercial kitchen and employees. Years later, Ittabit’s Pickles is not only found in farmers markets, but also in nine grocery stores, and soon will be found in a ShopRite.
Before the pickle business, Klik played hockey. She played right wing her whole life through her senior year of high school. In her freshman year at Marist, Klik wanted a break from the icy rink and hip checks of hockey. So, she walked on to the rowing team with some of her friends. Head coach Tom Sanford, a former hockey player himself, believed in her and told her to stick with it. But between the already overwhelming nature of freshman year, rowing at the Division I level and having a business to run, she struggled to keep it all balanced.
She stopped rowing, only to pick it back up in her sophomore year, and after surviving “hell week,” she hasn’t looked back. Competing in the third varsity eight, rowing has become the backbone of her operation.
“Rowing makes you just so disciplined,” she said. “I’m up early, I’m organized. I think that’s like a big, big helper.”
For a look into who Klik is in a single story, look no further than the end of her sophomore season, when she was put in a seat race for a chance to race at the MAAC Championships. Klik, who is 5-foot-7 and a walk-on, wasn’t expecting herself to win.
After pushing as hard as she could and “huffing and puffing,” she won by a boat length.
“I don’t think anyone was really expecting me to win the seat race,” she laughed. “But I did. And I made it to MAACs, which was so much fun.”
On the day of the seat race and most others, practice ends around 9 a.m. Then, Klik will eat breakfast, head to class and open her pickle phone.
“I always have to be looking,” she said. It usually is full of store orders, bulk requests and vendor emails. The screen lights up in her pocket between classes and team lifts. She checks it at least once every two hours on a light day.
The pickles themselves are what built Ittabit’s success. They’ve built a following that now even extends to the Marist boathouse. Word travels fast on a rowing team — Marist men’s rowing sophomore Reed Livingston is an avid fan of Ittabit’s pickles, though his favorite is their pickled beets, a specialty Ittabit’s is known for.
“The beets don’t taste like dirt as much as most beets do,” Livingston said. “I also love the brine in the pickles, especially after a sweaty workout to get some electrolytes in.”
Klik has orders to fill — that’s where her dad comes in. Kenneth Klik drives the box truck, handles deliveries and has been her right-hand man since the lemonade stand days.
“I love sharing something we’re proud of with other people; seeing customers enjoy our pickles is a big part of that,” Kenneth said.
“More than anything, he’s my biggest supporter,” Klik said. “That’s what makes working together so special.” Kenneth also owns a carpet-cleaning business of his own. Entrepreneurship runs in the family, and Ittabit’s has been a way for them to build a business together.
“It’s better than sitting in class,” she said. “Real-life experience.”
Klik doesn’t yet know exactly what comes after college, but the pickles will definitely be part of it. She’ll keep erging and maybe row recreationally while keeping the 5 a.m. lifestyle even when no one is making her. At this point, she wouldn’t even know how to stop.
The discipline that built Ittabit’s Pickles built her rowing career. Elizabeth Klik has been doing exactly that since she was eight years old. The rowing part just came later.
Edited by Max Rosen and Mike Schiavone
Graphic by Isabel Cortese
Photo from Marist Athletics
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