Supplying Cooks in a Culinary Hub

By Micah Cheek

As Austin, Texas’, culinary scene grows, both restaurant industry professionals and avid home cooks in the city are making their way to Métier Cook’s Supply for supplies and guidance from industry veterans. The store is owned by Jessica Maher and Todd Duplechan, who, in addition to stocking shelves and sharpening knives, run the restaurant, Lenoir, next door. “My husband and I have been in the restaurant industry for several decades. When we opened the restaurant we had this side project; we had been brainstorming some holes in what Austin had to offer,” says Maher. “A couple years later, a building adjacent to the restaurant was open. We opened the restaurant in 2012, and we opened the store in 2014.” They repurposed the property, a 1940s-era home, and divided up the rooms by types of stock. “We use probably half the actual building for store space; we have about 700 square feet just devoted to inventory,” says Maher. “One half is tools and knives, the other half is cookware. The middle room is where we have all the books and magazine publications, new and vintage.”

One of the needs Maher was filling was Austin’s lack of professional-quality knives. “Our top seller is knives, by far. People come in looking for knives want someone with experience finding the right knife for them,” says Maher. Tools and knife apparel are tied with cookbooks for second place. “We carry Japanese knives, but mostly western-style Japanese knives and domestic knives that are mostly handmade. It’s a preference on our part and it’s a general trend in the professional world.” Métier also serves a community that is very interested in the hand-crafted and homemade. “The trend is DIY, whether that’s fermentation [or] sharpening your knives, getting the tools you need to do it yourself,” says Maher. “There’s a lot of interest in both healthy eating, and there’s people who want just meat. Any kind of barbecue book is popular with us. There’s [also] a local book about hunting and fishing and preparing. I think it’s really DIY; people want to experiment with things. It’s not necessarily how to cook things in a hurry.”

In addition to books on barbecue and hunting, Métier stocks a large collection of both old and new cookbooks, which attracts cooks both looking for new techniques and older, out of print titles. “We have a pretty robust selection. I think that the books have to be usable, and serious. I don’t like single subjects unless it encompasses a lot of things,” says Maher. “The selection is where serious cooks can find a book for themselves.”

Positioned adjacent to a neighborhood that’s one of Austin’s most popular social hubs, Métier is an easy find for its millennial-leaning customer base. “We have two demographics. We have the professionals, those are usually low 20s to mid-30s, then we have the avid home cook, and that demographic is a little bit older – somewhere in the late 20s to mid-50s,” says Maher. “We have lots of regulars – mostly regulars and people visiting town. Almost everybody who works for us worked in the industry. They know a lot about food, about knives, about cooking; they can be really helpful that way.” Because these customers often come in knowing what they are looking for, Maher encourages a more hands-off approach to customer service. “I’ll ask them if they want something specific and if they want help,” says Maher. “We do not sell anybody anything… I don’t want to sell them something they don’t want.”

Métier also actively engages with Austin’s thriving food service community. “We give discounts to people in the industry; we have a job board that lists positions that are open,” says Maher. “We do a lot of community events; we let people do popups inside of the store if there’s something they want to promote. We sharpen knives on whetstones. My husband also teaches classes on knives so they can take care of them at home, or we can take care of them at the store.”

While Métier and the restaurant next door have been separate entities, Maher is trying to cultivate an experience that makes diners want to buy the tools to make the meals they had at Lenoir. “That’s definitely something we’re trying to capture. It’s kind of a slow building process,” says Maher. “It seems like a lot of the people who come to the store know that the restaurant is owned by the same people, but not a lot of people who go to the restaurant know about the store.” Looking towards the future, Maher has a long list of other ways she wants the business to expand as she sees a more informed millennial customer base coming in. “Adding wedding registries, adding services, building our reputation, and also continuing to have sales throughout the year rather than in the fourth quarter. We’re starting to get into things here already. We do book signings. It’s kind of diversification, that’s what we’re working on,” says Maher. “We fall into the millennial category ourselves, and I think they’re just starting to realize the right tools and knowledge will make them better cooks and realizing it’s just healthier.”