Retailer: Someone’s In The Kitchen
Location: Rapid City, S.D.
Owner: Ashley Berry
Square feet: 5,000 sq. ft.
Founded: 1998
When Ashley Berry bought Someone’s In The Kitchen in April 2012, the store had already been a mainstay of the area for 15 years.
Located in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Berry’s customers travel from miles around to visit the store, and Berry recognized the importance of keeping things familiar for returning shoppers.
“We didn’t do much to change the store,” she says. “The old owners did a great job of running an efficient store, so we just did some updating on the floor.”
She adds that keeping the same long-time employees was key.
“We are in an area that is small enough where people know each other and appreciate having a familiar face to talk with when they come into the store, so it was important to us to make sure everyone who had been working here before stayed on,” Berry says.
Someone’s In the Kitchen, which bills itself as “the largest gourmet center in South Dakota” on its website, counts out-of-staters as local customers, rather than considering them part of a tourist trade.
That’s thanks to the wide spaces out West and the almost frontier-like attitude of people who are willing to travel to urban areas from ranches and other rural outposts.
“Some of my regular customers are not residents of Rapid City,” Berry says. “You think they just live down the road, but they really drive quite a while to get here. We have people coming a couple of hundred miles to see us. They come from Wyoming and North Dakota, stopping here as part of a regular trip to town to pick up supplies. We are a destination point.”
Because of that, Someone’s In The Kitchen mixes up its merchandise assortment a bit, adding many gift and gourmet foods items to the kitchenware line up.
“We are obviously a kitchen store but people come in looking for gifts and they aren’t stuck buying solely kitchen items, they are able to buy something meaningful and unique,” Berry says.
“We try to bring in one-of-a-kind items that aren’t easily found in any store in Rapid City,” she says.
That includes locally-made products, says Berry, who is active in seeking out the state’s artisans and food producers for her ‘Dakota-made Products’ section (for example, Dakota Seasonings Wild Chokecherry Jelly).
“Anytime a local artist comes in and offers something unique we try to support them,” she says. “We aren’t the kind of store that carries the same thing as a big box store.”
That is certainly apparent in the merchandising strategy.
The store’s full-service espresso bar anchors a small electrics section featuring coffee and espresso machines sitting out box free, encouraging customers to pick up the devices.
Shoppers can enjoy espresso-based drinks and browse the section, hoisting the appliances and discussing their features with sales staff.
“People want to feel the machines, they like to know what they’re getting,” says Berry. “We can create a new relationship with a customer by having a conversation about the product.”
She also encourages her team to break out the product care books and go over those with shoppers.
“That shows the customer you are taking time to make sure they have the right information,” she explains.
And that is a way to differentiate Someone’s In The Kitchen from big box and online competition.
“It helps to bring product buying down to a human level, showing that you care,” Berry says.
