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.”