First Month Of Learning

A Month Of Business Learnings:

Here are my boys…happy and smiling.  We are getting our routines together.  Morry is the morning guy, loves to clean the store. That’s why it smells so good.  He is also the Clear Flour guy…picking up the baguetts every morning.  He loves to sell and meet new people, as our way of selling is very personal.  CJ is the food guy, keeps track of inventory,  reorders and new products .  He keeps the store neat and tidy and has a steel trap mind for details. He secured 2 personalized wedding favor orders and finds what’s needed; cello bags, ribbon, labels with the correct font.  He also schedules us and our great staff:  Deborah, Rose, Barbara, Katy, Ryan.   (Me, Carol,)  I am the Big Cheese…organizing events, meeting new people, doing the books, Minister of Finance, which is making my head explode.

Personalized Wedding Favors

What Have We Been Doing?  ALOT

We had a photo shoot in the store selecting many of our best selling products for the website e commerce.  The windows were covered to get the perfect light.  Camera man Damon, and stylist Tanja,  worked their magic.  Customers were interested too.  Stay tuned…now we have to write the copy.

We planned hostess gifts for Rosh Hashanah to celebrate a Sweet New Year.  Honey from Vermont and Georgia.  Still looking for a local honey…to combat allergies.

We are promoting our favorite set of Arbequina Olive Oil and Elderberry Vinegar from Seka Hill in Napa.

Set for $29.95-delicious for 500ml

We have sprays of olive oil with lemon, basil, garlic, and truffle for back to school and the office…perfect in the desk drawer for your lunch salad.  Stick with the lemon or basil, the garlic and truffle might be too strong for your after lunch meeting.

Our friend Jim, Professor of Marketing at Emerson U brought his sophomore class of 19 students to the store.  We talked about the mission of the store, and what is next.  They have 4 teams, competing for the award of the most creative marketing ideas for us. They loved the store and bought food…we had snacks for them too. (I wish I had a photo of them as they were darling.)

This week’s charity event brought in Brookline Neighbors supporting our friend John, previous Principal of Devotion School, who is Dancing with the Stars for Rotary.  His flow through charity of Sister City School in Nicaragua.  is supported by many key people in Brookline and they all came out to support us.  Rose made the food with ingredients from our store.  Blood Orange OO brownies, charcuterie, appetizers with caramelized bacon and hot pepper jam, fruit and crudites dipped in our sweet beet horseradish dip. We sold all that our guests tasted.  A portion of the sales that night went to the charity and the guests were generous opening their wallets.  We made many new friends.

The Food Editor from the Globe was in to meet the 3 of us and the Globe photographer came to shoot the store.  Let’s cross our fingers that we will get some press.  Our ad is in the newest released fall version of Edible Magazine.  We have free copies for all.

Meghan continues to do good work for us in social media, and the good news is we have repeat customers!  And now we are getting to know who they are!  Lots more to do in this area once we have a data base.

The first day of fall this week Janet came to remerchandise the store.  We have Tailgating and Football in one window and preparing for fall entertaining in the other.  Stay tuned to new products coming in for harvest cooking.

Cranberry Relish with Grand Manier, Pumpkin Mustard, Horseradish and Garlic Pretzel Dip, and more to come…

Our customers tell us what they like.  Here is what one customer bought for his Sat night BBQ entertaining.

Carmelized Garlic EVOO, Hickory salt, Gimme Steak Rub, Smoked Maple Syrup, was in the Globe last week and we have it.

As seen in the Globe Food Section this week…Original Bacon Spread…we have it too.

NYTimes announced this release and it arrived yesterday!

Alice Waters new book just released

And back by popular demand, Raspberry Balsamic and Lambrusco Wine Vinegar…

Stay tuned…we are staying out of trouble and learning all the time from eachother and from our customers.  Requests and suggestions are coming through and we welcome all of them. And we are having fun.  Isn’t that what it is all about?