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GOURMET NEWS NOVEMBER 2019 www.gourmetnews.com RETAILER NEWS 1 1 Chef Darin's Kitchen Table Cooks in Savannah of more than 145,000 people. "We're still getting the word out that there's still a store here in Savannah," Sehnert said. His business draws most of its clientele from Savannah's tourist trade, and Sehnert encourages that by marketing his cooking classes through TripAdvisor and advertise- ments on Savannah's Convention and Visi- tors Bureau's guides to local attractions. "We're number one for food and beverage activities on TripAdvisor, so customers find us when they're looking for things to do in Savannah," he said. His premises includes about 1,000 square feet of teaching kitchen equipped with four separate dual-fuel KitchenAid ranges on two stations with a chef's station at the front. Up to 16 guests at a time work in small groups of four or five on menus that reflect seasonal ingredients and an emphasis on local culinary traditions. Low Country Shrimp and Grits is the single most popular class, offered monthly in a rotation that in- cludes seven to nine topics a month with five to seven classes offered in an average week. In the winter months, a class on northern Italian cooking that features a menu with osso buco and saffron risotto is popular. "I do all the teaching," Sehnert said. "One of the things that peo- ple like is the focus on science and technique, which resonates particu- larly among men. They like it fun.... When it's a leisure learning experience, where you're choosing to do it – if it's not fun, people aren't going to want to come back." In addition to his regularly scheduled classes, Sehnert also offers private classes and events for up to 60 people at a time. "People do book classes as special events like family re- unions," he said. "We have a special New Year's Eve class, and there's a Thanks- giving class for out-of- towners or locals who aren't going out with their family. It's out of the ordi- nary, and it's better than sitting in a busy restau- rant." At the front of the store, he has about 1,000 square feet of display floor in which he offers products from Microplane, cookware by Hammer Stahl and baking pans from USA Pan as well as Messermeis- ter knives and Epicurean cutting boards. All of the tools and equipment in the store are items that he actually uses in his classes, chosen because he and his one store assistant can personally vouch for the value proposition offered by each piece. "I like to be able to explain how a piece of cookware will perform for them," he said. "I want people to feel confident in what they're buying rather than buying a name that they recognize that may or may not serve their purposes." The sales floor is part of the attraction for the location when Sehnert volunteers his store as a host site for guest chef classes during the Savannah Food and Wine Fes- tival. Over the course of the week-long fes- tival held in November of each year by Savannah's Tourism Leadership Council, Chef Darin's Kitchen Table will host 12 to 15 classes, with class fees benefiting the council's TLC Scholarship Fund, which of- fers educational opportunities for students enrolled in hospitality programs in the re- gion's colleges and universities. "We get a lot of out-of-town visitors for that as well as year-round," Sehnert said. "The store acts as a waiting area between the festival classes. It's definitely a marketing effort; it draws people in who would not have known about us otherwise." GN BY LORRIE BAUMANN More than three decades of cooking profes- sionally has taught Chef Darin Sehnert that the three things that lead to success for any cook – whether at home or in a commercial restaurant kitchen – are techniques, ingre- dients and equipment. That's the philoso- phy he passes along to the home cooks who come to his Savannah kitchen store, Chef Darin's Kitchen Table, to learn about South- ern coastal cooking while they're weekend- ing in the city. While they're in the store, he's also happy to sell them the kitchen- ware that they'll need to be successful at home with the dishes they've learned in class. "The approach is to look at what's out there and offer what has great performance plus value," Sehnert said. "My approach is not to be everything to everyone because I think it's easy to fill up with a lot of inven- tory that may or may not be purchased." Sehnert opened his store as a cooking school four years ago, then added the retail end of the operation about two years ago after other Savannah kitchenware stores closed. His business is now the only spe- cialty kitchenware store in the community Kiss the Cook in Wimberley, Texas where they came to relax for family week- ends, and many of them were tourists who came to swim in Wimberley's famous Blue Hole, to kayak on the Blanco River and to shop in Wimberley's downtown bou- tiques. "It's both a weekend and a vacation place.... There are lots of good restaurants and boutiques," Isgitt said. "We found a real niche." Some of them wander into Kiss the Cook thinking it might be a restaurant. They're likely to laugh and tell Isgitt that they're going to need to go with the family to eat, but they'll be back afterwards to shop," Is- gitt said. "Their favorite saying – besides, 'I love this place' – is, 'If you don't have it, I don't need it.'" Inside the 1,800 square-foot store, they find an interior remodeled in 2017 by Isgitt and HTI Buying Group President, KC Lapi- ana. They repainted the store, which hadn't been touched since it had opened in 2001, put in new laminate flooring and replaced the old grid system for gadgets with a slat wall. They also replaced some of the fix- tures that had been donated by manufac- turers along the way with new units that matched. That opened up the aisles so they were accessible for wheelchairs. "It was hard to get a wheelchair around [before the remodel], and now it's not hard at all," Is- gitt said. "The slat wall allowed hanging products that had maybe been in bins. KC really did help organize my store." A central island displays best sellers, in- cluding the Chic Wrap plastic wrap dis- penser and Bee's Wrap and silicone and stainless steel reusable straws. "People from Austin want sustainable products," Isgitt said. "They don't want products that go into the trash.... The customers are really conscious of wanting products that they can reuse, that don't hurt the environ- ment." Lekue's silicone bowl covers, Fresh- Paper and Green Savers from OXO that help produce stay fresh longer appeal to the same customers, she added. Against the wall, a 40-foot slat wall is packed with gadgets like the Zyliss Easy Pull Food Processor that appeals to Texans who make their own salsa frequently, and OXO's Mini Mandolin that helps Isgitt her- self keep her fingers safe when she's making her favorite Brussels sprout salads. "Our goal is to encourage people to cook more at home and to make cooking fun," she said. "I like Chef'n's Brussels Sprouts Corer also." The Chop Combo, a cutting board with magnets on the back designed by an Austin architect is another favorite product. It pairs with a magnetic bar designed to be adhered to the kitchen backsplash with a strip of Velcro hook and loop fastener. "The cutting board coordinates so it clamps to the knife bar and covers the knives when you're not using it," Isgitt said. "He in- vented that, and he markets it here at our store." When she's cooking at home, Isgitt en- joys making lasagna that she bakes in her Emile Henry baking dish. "I love that Nex- Trend Garlic Twist, and I'm using the Tra- montina cookware now," she said. "Most of my customers have a favorite chef they fol- low, like Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten. They love her and her recipe books. I'm a huge Tyler Florence fan. I love his recipes. That's me." For more information, visit www.kissthe cookwimberley.com. GN BY LORRIE BAUMANN Bren Isgitt opened her Kiss the Cook kitchenware store in Wimberley, Texas, in 2001 in a building that had been an old house. She'd bought the house on a hand- shake deal on the square in Wimberley and started renovations. "It had been an old house with lots of low ceilings and little rooms," Isgitt said. We raised the ceiling by vaulting it to the roof, adding beautiful massive structural beams." The grand opening for the new store in Wimberley was held on October 1 of 2001. "It was market day, when 20,000 people come to town," Isgitt said. "We opened that weekend, and at the end of the first day – boy, we knew we made the right move." In Wimberley, Isgitt and a business part- ner who's since left the business found a Texas Hill Country community of home cooks who had Food Network on their cable television, access to culinary schools in Austin and San Antonio and the in- comes they could generate in city careers to support their culinary aspirations. Some of their new customers were Hous- tonians with second homes in Wimberley

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