Kitchenware Retailers
Summer Market Treasure Hunt
By Lorrie Baumann
This summer’s gift and home markets offer a wealth of treasures waiting to be discovered. Dallas Total Home & Gift Market was held in June, so it’ll be over by the time you read this, and coming up next is The Atlanta International Gift & Home Furnishings Market, which will be held July 9-15 at AmericasMart, Atlanta, Georgia. Las Vegas Market will be held July 28-August 1 at the World Market Center in Las Vegas, and the NY NOW Home and Lifestyle Collections will be shown August 11-14 at Javits Center in New York City. We’ve done some advance scouting for products that will be coming out at these markets.
The Kitchen Collection from Calaisio, Inc.
Calaisio is offering three different sizes of Pillivuyt oven-to-table baking dishes, each with its own beautiful heat-resistant Calaisio carrier serving basket. The 1-quart casserole retails for $112, the 2-quart casserole for $140, and the 3-quart for $179. For more information, email sales@calaisio.com and see them at Las Vegas Market.
Artisan Hand-Loomed Cotton Table Runner
Arcadia Home will be showing its Artisan Hand-Loomed Cotton Table Runner in three colorways: Grey Dots, Gray Block Print and the Indigo that’s shown here. Gorgeous color, contemporary pattern, and the evidence of artisan’s hand combine to make this a conversation piece that feels special, fresh and elegant.
The runner is 18 inches by 96 inches, and each is handmade with design as unique as the artisan who creates it. The creation of this design involves spinning and weaving hand-dyed cotton using artisan techniques that have been passed down through generations. Hand-sewn kantha stitching is the finishing touch. The craftsmanship involved at each stage of hand-dying, hand-spinning, hand-looming, hand-cutting and hand-sewing ensures that every finished piece is truly one-of-a-kind.
It retails for $135. For more information, visit Arcadia Home at www.arcadiahomeinc.com, call 212.366.1836, email info@arcadiahomeinc.com or see the runners and more in the Arcadia Home showroom on floor C10 at Las Vegas Market.
COSTA NOVA Cook & Host Chip and Dip
Casafina will be showing new items from its COSTA NOVA Cook & Host collection this summer in C123 at the Las Vegas Market. The collection is offered in five colorways: white, cream, blue, red and gray with the Chip and Dip retailing for $16. For more information, call National Sales Manager Matt Hullfish at matth@casafinagifts.com or by calling 845.277.5700 or visit www.casafinagifts.com.
Soberdough Home-Baked Bread Mixes
Soberdough‘s Home-Baked Bread Mixes make all-natural home-baked bread simple. No baking skills are required – the mix makes an amazing bread just by adding beer and baking. There’s a variety of flavors and bread styles, including Herb & Olive Foccacia, Cheesy Garlic, Honey Wheat, Cinnamon Swirl, Cranberry Orange and Cinnful Raisin. The mixes retail for $8.95.
For more information, phone 615.775.3329, email wholesale@soberdough.com or visit www.soberdough.com. See them this summer at AmericasMart or in the TASTE showroom at Las Vegas Market.
Shaggies from JaneyLynn’s Designs
The one-of-a-kind Shaggie® is a cleaning cloth made from 100 percent cotton chenille that absorbs 10 times its own weight in wet messes and is machine washable for a multitude of uses. Designed for the kitchen, you can take the Shaggie indoors, outdoors, kitchen or bath – wherever a mess is found. This multi-purpose super wash cloth is naturally dual textured and is the perfect, strong yet gentle solution for dishes, washing windows and even scrubbing eggs. It also fits on a Swiffer for an eco-friendly alternative to their disposable sheets.
Shaggies are 10 inches square and available in 16 colors. They retail for $7.99 for a pair. For more information, visit www.janeylynns.com or call 888.608.5336. See Shaggies in Atlanta in B1-9-E1 or in Las Vegas at C112KK.
Bottoms Up Wine Bottle Holder from Sea Stones
Sea Stones‘ playful Bottoms Up Wine Bottle Holder is designed with purpose and beauty in mind. Handcrafted from recycled granite, hand-formed helical aluminum rods and select New England beach stones, each holder securely embraces three bottles of wine. The whimsical twists hold each bottle inverted to keep corks moist and expanded, protecting and preserving the wine.
The recycled granite base is handmade with two special processes that first give each base an organic, chiseled edge, then smooth and finish the rough granite. The rods are topped with a hand-collected New England beach stone for a dash of style. The compact design makes an eye-catching display on the table or sideboard, and soft feet protect against scratches. The Bottoms Up Wine Bottle Holder retails for $49.
For more information, call 206.202.1092, email info@sea-stones.com, visit www.sea-stones.com or see it in the American Made Collective booth at either AmericasMart (799) or Las Vegas Market (C-1106).
Rae Dunn STEM Print Measuring Cups and Spoons
The STEM print by Rae Dunn brings her classic handwriting back with a new, bold font. Rae’s classic stoneware measuring cups and spoons are now in black and white. They’re food safe and dishwasher safe, but the metal parts are not safe in the microwave. Available from Magenta, the cups retail for $41.50, and the spoons retail for $34 for the sets. For more information, contact Kim Elizade by calling 510.849.3888 or emailing info@magenta-inc.com, visit www.magenta-inc.com or see them in the Magenta showroom in Building C at Las Vegas Market.
Shell Mosaic Bar Set and Cocktail Shaker
Be Home will be exhibiting on the 10th floor of Building 1 at the Atlanta International Gift & Home Furnishings Market, and you’ll be able to see this Shell Mosaic Bar Set and Cocktail Shaker there along with an array of other tabletop items that highlight the earthy tones of natural woods and stone alongside the glitter and sparkle of shining metallics and recycled glass. Visit in Atlanta July 9-15 or contact Be Home by calling 510.848.5060 or emailing orders@behome.com. For further information, see www.behome.com.
Conn’s HomePlus Enters New Orleans with Three New Stores in 2019
Conn’s, Inc. , the Houston-based specialty retailer of furniture, mattresses, home appliances and consumer electronics, announces expansion into the New Orleans market, opening three new Conn’s HomePlus™ stores this year.
Beginning with a new location in the Manhattan Crossing shopping center in Harvey, located at 2424 Manhattan Blvd., the first store will open its doors to shoppers on Friday, February 15. The Harvey store marks Louisiana’s eighth Conn’s HomePlus, bringing total operating units to 124 dotted across 14 states. The New Orleans expansion will continue in Slidell and Metairie in late June, with a grand opening event to celebrate the new stores scheduled for this summer.
“We are excited to expand our footprint in Louisiana,” said Norm Miller, Conn’s Chairman and CEO. “In addition to three new stores in New Orleans, we opened a second location in Baton Rouge, joining a store that is celebrating its 20th anniversary. This growth provides an opportunity for increased positive economic and philanthropic impact to the customers and communities in the area.”
Offering area-residents a unique alternative for affordable home shopping, the new 45,000 square-foot Conn’s HomePlus store showcases a variety of furniture, mattresses, top-of-the-line appliances, consumer electronics and home office products. Shoppers will also enjoy brand differentiators, including flexible payment plans tailored to individual needs.
The Leap to the Kitchen Drawer
Six years ago, small business owner Dona Halbert took a leap and decided to buy her own piece of land in Tyler, Texas, and construct a building from the ground up for the Kitchen Drawer. It was a risk for her career and for her family, but a risk that she says was worth it.
Located in Tyler, Texas, the “Rose Capital of the World,” and nestled in an up-and-coming part of town, the Kitchen Drawer kitchenware specialty store provides well-made merchandise for cooks at all levels. The store offers culinary tools ranging from gadgets, specialty bakeware, kitchen textiles, barbecue and grilling tools as well as bar accessories. The store also holds fun cooking demonstrations and seminars ranging from basic knife skill classes to healthy makeovers for comfort foods.
The small 12-year-old business started out when Halbert, who had a little experience working in retail stores, saw a need for a kitchenware store in her community. “We had a really fantastic kitchenware store here in Tyler, but then it sold and then went out of business. One or two other stores popped up, but they never really stayed true to a kitchenware store,” she said.
It was while she enjoyed a cooking class with her husband that Halbert had the idea to start her own kitchenware store. The building she found was about 800 square feet – just large enough to start her dream of a kitchenware store.
Using her discretionary income and a small loan, she signed the lease of the small building, remodeled it and by October 2007 she’d opened the Kitchen Drawer. She rented the space for about five-and-a-half years, and each year, the kitchenware store saw dramatic growth.
Halbert, who was a one-time manager in the healthcare field, says even though she was a new business owner, after only five years of business, she knew that in order to help the Kitchen Drawer thrive, it was going to need more space.
“When I started my business, I said I was going to reassess every five years to see what we’d accomplished, what our goals were, and do it in five-year increments,” she said. “I thought five years was a better barometer than one year, and so at five years, I knew I needed more space. So rather than continue to rent, we were fortunate enough to find a plot to build on and start from scratch,” she explained.
The construction crew broke ground on January 10, 2013, while the business owner was at market. “We got out ahead of the curve as far as prices went, and sometime in the future, we’ll be able to recoup and sell the lot as opposed to paying rent,” she said.
Months later, she had her very own building, but she says the move was a little rocky.
There was some confusion with the construction company on when she could make the transition to the new building that caused a delay in sales, and on top of that, the little store wouldn’t see any growth in business for the next year. “During the fall when we made the transition to the bigger store, I didn’t see any growth. Our numbers maintained the same as they were the year before,” Halbert said. “But pretty much, there was nonexistent growth, as far as I’m concerned.”
Then, a year after they moved in, the holidays hit, and the business saw double-digit growth.
Every year since the Kitchen Drawer made the transition, their business has doubled. “The store moved into a better part of the city where we’re at in Tyler and the growth has been exponentially huge,” Halbert said.
With the move into a bigger space, Halbert has been able to expand her product lines and inventory. “We refocused on primarily the nuts and bolts of kitchenware. For example, if you need a 13-inch tart pan with a removable bottom, we’re pretty much the only store in town who’ll have that,” she said. “You can order it on Amazon, but if you have all the ingredients at home and are waiting and ready, usually, you don’t want to wait to get it in the mail.”
The new location also includes a kitchen for cooking classes. “There simply wasn’t the room to do cooking classes at our old location,” Halbert said. “There are people who do cooking classes with induction cook plates and stuff like that, but that wasn’t what I thought our customers were asking for.”
Classes are small – limited to around eight people, and the setting in the new kitchen is intimate. “The kitchen doesn’t have commercial appliances,” Halbert said. “It has the same appliances you could have at home. It’s small and designed for around 12 people.” The kitchen was designed with the option to bring in additional tables to expand the seating for larger parties into the surrounding space.
Overall, the business owner says the risk was the right move. “There’s always risk involved with real estate and with business,” Halbert said, “…and I knew I had enough backing, and I knew that if it wasn’t going to work, I’d know within two years…. You lose sleep over it; there’s no doubt about it. That’s just the nature of owning your own business, I believe. Nobody cares about it as much as you do.”
Pryde’s Offers Kitchenware Shoppers Old-Time Customer Service
By Robin Mather
Tucked into a tree-filled neighborhood called Old Westport in Kansas City, Kansas, Pryde’s Kitchen & Necessities is a wonderland for the curious cook.
Its fans say things like, “The store is clean and the displays are beautiful and never messy, and you can tell the employees love working there,” and “So much stuff, it almost feels like a hoarder’s paradise.” Owner Louise Meyers says tour buses visit the store, filled with tourists who have come from far away to the store they know as a mecca for the kitchen-obsessed. “Forty percent of our customers come from out of town,” she says. “They say, ‘It isn’t Christmas until you’ve been to Pryde’s.’ ”
The store’s floors are jam-packed with gadgets, linens, pots and pans, specialty cookware, coffee, and tea pots and accessories and more. Pryde’s offers the largest selection of Homer Laughlin Fiestaware in the Midwest, says Meyers, and she’s also obviously proud of the large selection of thick maple cutting boards made by a Missouri company called C & C Woodworks.
One whole room is devoted to shelf after shelf of cake plates and baking supplies, including everything from rolling pins to cake pop pans. Pryde’s also is known for its large offering of the highly prized Mosser Glass items, including jadeite and colored milk glass serveware. The store, while crammed with merchandise – it even hangs from the ceilings – is carefully curated and artfully arranged, and staff can lead you quickly and easily to glassware, or mugs, or dessert plate sets, or whatever it is that your heart desires.
The new cook who shops at Pryde’s will get the same reassuring assistance, and guidance to the best-quality item she’s looking for, as the long-time customer who is a confident cook and needs an unusual item. Both will return again and again to Pryde’s for its high-quality merchandise, but also, one suspects, for the congenial sales staff, and maybe the complimentary tea or coffee offered to shoppers while they prowl the store.
Amazingly, Pryde’s is not computerized in any way. Staff people still hand-write receipts, and Meyers says she carries the inventory of hundreds of thousands of items in her head. She works on the floor of the store every day, and tracks inventory that way, she says.
“I didn’t want to get into a situation where I was spending all my time at a desk, staring at a computer,” she says. “And oddly enough, this works fine for me.”
Goods for Cooks Offers Fare for Foodies
By Lorrie Baumann
Sam Eibling, her brother George Huntington, and her husband, Doug Eibling, bought Goods for Cooks, in Bloomington, Indiana, last September with the thought that previous owners Andrew and Charlotte Appel had a good thing going on. They just wanted to try to honor the legacy that the previous owners had created. “We’re the fifth set of owners,” Sam Eibling says. “It started in 1973 with Charlotte [Zietlow] and Marilyn [Schultz], who passed it to Bob [Swanson], and then to Beth Hollingsworth. … Each owner had presided over the shop anywhere between eight and 12 years, and the business celebrates 45 years this year. It’s been a fixture in the community.”
Goods for Cooks, which has about 2,400 square feet of display space, is housed in a storefront built in 1929 on Bloomington’s downtown square. It’s across the street from the county courthouse and about a mile from the IU campus. Goods for Cooks is a block from the B-Line Trail, a multi-use trail through Bloomington’s downtown, and it’s about two blocks from the local farmers market. There’s a cooking school downstairs in the same building.
Goods for Cooks is divided by a glass-walled hallway that separates the area where food is sold — about a third of the space — from the kitchenware side of the business. On the kitchenware side of the store, Sam has adjusted the inventory mix a bit away from a focus on high-end goods, in an effort to attract customers who aren’t yet confident enough in the kitchen to know where they want to make a real investment in their equipment.
“We are committed to carrying high-quality products at a variety of price points with the intention of making cooking and entertaining accessible to all,” Sam says. “We are dedicated to serving the serious cooks and connoisseurs, as well as the novices, the curious and even the frustrated cook. Food is life, a means of connecting and nourishing those we love, honoring traditions and expanding worldviews — we want to foster this.”
Goods for Cooks offers Groceries, Too
On the grocery side of the store, Goods for Cooks offers a cold case with cheeses and charcuterie. “You could basically come into our store and buy everything you need to put together a charcuterie plate,” Sam said. The cheese selection includes about 10 cheeses at any given time, with the focus on Parmesan and other hard Italian cheeses as well as Vermont Creamery’s offerings. Tea and coffee are sampled every day, and the selection also includes several different kinds of pasta and polenta. A vinegar and olive oil tasting bar offers a large assortment of olive oils, and the shelves also hold jams, jellies, and compotes as well as cookies, chocolates, and candies. “It’s like a mini gourmet entertaining grocery store,” Sam says. “It’s a great place to buy a little treat for yourself or a gift for a friend.”
Food currently represents about a quarter of Goods for Cook’s revenues, and that share is growing “… as we educate through social media, our website and other marketing avenues,” Sam says.
“Everyone eats, so everyone’s our customer. That seems very broad, but that is literally the intention behind this business,” she adds. “We’re looking for people who are still exploring. We have customers who want to learn, and also customers who don’t want to learn — maybe they just want some salami and cheese to take to a party. But we also have people coming in to look for knives or a tagine or a coffee. We strive to meet each customer’s needs. We strive to cultivate a space where everyone feels comfortable, no matter their level of interest or experience regarding food.”
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