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www.kitchenwarenews.com • NOVEMBER 2019 • KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW Spotlight on Retailers BY LORRIE BAUMANN Let's take this opportunity to take a look back and recognize once again the fabulous kitchenware retailers who graced the pages of Kitchenware News this year. In January of this year, the spotlight was on Dona Halbert, who owns and operates The Kitchen Drawer in Tyler, Texas. She told us that making the decision to launch from her 800-square foot rental space into her own larger store in 2013 was at first a little scary but then rewarding as her business saw double-digit growth in its first holiday season, and her new space gave her the option to offer cooking classes in an intimate classroom kitchen. "You lose sleep over it; there's no doubt about it," she said then. "That's just the nature of owning your own business, I believe. Nobody cares about it as much as you do." In March, we visited with Eric Frickle, who owns The Kitchen Engine in Spokane, Washington, along with his wife, Nicole Frickle. They opened their store in 2006 just down the street from the historic district of Spokane and have remained in the same location since then, discovering together that Spokane could indeed support a relatively narrow niche like kitchenware, so they could focus their merchandise just on that category instead of expanding into giftware, although the store does carry a variety of spices, teas and locally roasted coffee to cater to its customers. The Kitchen Engine also offers cooking classes where everyone gets to eat, everyone gets the recipes, and they get the answers to their questions, but they may or may not actually have their hands in the cooking, depending on the structure of the individual class and the number of guests it was designed to accommodate. In May, Kitchenware News took you to visit Sunflower Bakery in the Washington, D.C. area, which provides occupational training for people with intellectual disabilities. While Sunflower Bakery isn't a kitchen store, it is a kitchen, and the story is a reminder once again of how our time in the kitchen has the ability to nourish us all in a variety of ways. People with intellectual disabilities are more than twice as likely as those in the general population to be unemployed. The jobs they do find are likely to be part-time and to pay them less than the minimum wage. Many non-profit agencies around the countr y have found that kitchen skills have a real role in helping those who learn them to feel competent and confident and to be able to make a contribution to their world. In July, we were all out at the summer markets, but we were back in our places in September in time to take you to Wimberley, Texas, to meet Bren Isgitt at Kiss the Cook. She's discovered that the home cooks in the Texas Hill Country are inspired by their exposure to television cooking shows and their own culinar y aspirations. She built her store into a remodeled house on Wimberley's town square and then remodeled the interior again in 2017 with help f rom HTI Buying Group President KC Lapiana. Her new fixtures are coordinated, her 40-foot slat wall is well stocked with gadgets, and her new floor plan is accessible for disabled customers. Some of her best sellers are the sustainable products that her customers demand because they want to use things in their kitchens that align with their beliefs that it's better not to buy things that they're going to throw away after they've used them once. In the same issue, you heard f rom Beth Wood, who owns Bandon Mercantile in Bandon, Oregon, along with her husband, Ed. Bandon is a cute little town on the coast of Oregon with a downtown area on the seaside that's made its quaint fishing village vibe a draw for summertime tourists visiting the coast. Bandon Mercantile's home is a 2,500 square-foot building on the edge of the downtown tourist area that was built in 1910 and has escaped two city- wide fires over the years. In a community with a high percentage of retired people, Bandon Mercantile's typical customer is 45 to 80 and is very likely to wander in looking for a gift either for a wedding or for Christmas. "Men absolutely love the f ree gift wrap," Beth says. "We really treat our customers well.... We are attentive without following people around in the store. W hen we do help, we do it cheerfully." Although Bandon Mercantile doesn't get returns often, when something does come back, the staff takes it cheerfully, Beth said. "I'm always astounded at how few things come back," she said. "But we make sure that our things do what they're supposed to do before we sell them." W hen shoppers are looking for something for their own kitchens, that's likely to be a specialized item like a dough docker or a poaching pan for a salmon, Beth said. "We sell a lot of the big tweezers for removing fish bones," she said. "We sell the salt plates for cooking on and also the cedar planks. They might need a basting brush or a pot holder or a flipper – you never know.... When they come in looking for something odd, and you have it, it's just such a great thing." KN 13

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