Retail Profile

Retail Profile: Rhubarb Kitchen Shop

“I still feel like the new kid,” says Ellen Kluge as she celebrates her store’s 25th year in business. “But apparently I’m not.” Even though Kluge has been with the store, Rhubarb Kitchen Shop, since she first welcomed customers as its manager in 1992, the excitement she feels running the store and greeting customers has never waned. “I’ve been happy,” she says. She’s…

Retail Profile: Cooks’Wares

It’s a family affair over at Cooks’Wares, in Cincinnati. Founded by Paul Fricke and his wife, Mary, in 1992, and now run by Mary, along with their son Steve and daughter Sharon, the store has been the go-to place for cooking classes in northern Cincinnati since the day it opened 25 years ago. Steve Fricke, the store’s current buyer, says his late dad (Paul Fricke died in…

Retail Profile: The Gourmet Warehouse

If Caren McSherry wasn’t the owner of a popular, successful gourmet store, she could be a candidate for the job of Energizer Bunny. When not traveling the world on buying trips for her Vancouver, BC store, The Gourmet Warehouse, McSherry is teaching cooking school, making weekly radio and television appearances, writing cookbooks (her seventh is due out this fall), raising…

Retail Profile: Pamplemousse

Retailing is like parenting: adding another kid (or location) to the family doesn’t double the work— it triples the effort. Diana Manahan, who opened the doors to the second location of her successful store Pamplemousse in Reading, Mass., more than a decade after opening her first store in Salem, Mass., agrees. Partly because the second store is the one she always wanted to…

Retail Profile: Plum’s Cooking Company

When Penny Klinedinst learned her friend Caroline Peterson, then owner of Plum’s Cooking Company, was retiring and planning to close the much-loved cookware shop, Klinedinst knew she had to find a way to keep Plum’s open. So she bought the store. “She was going to close the doors and that didn’t sit well with me,” says Klinedinst, who also owns a neighboring store in the…

Indonesia Market Visit

IHA Staff recently made a market visit to Indonesia in preparation for the planned November 2017 trade mission to that country. Indonesia, the largest economy in Southeast Asia, has enjoyed steady economic growth over the past decade, averaging between 5-6 percent, with moderate inflation, rising foreign direct investment, and relatively low interest rates. U.S.-Indonesia…

Retail Profile: The Kitchen Koop

Owner: Deon Foster Location: Portsmouth, Va. Founded: 1998 What is special about The Kitchen Koop? The retailer’s customers say it is the store’s service and great selection of cookware. They come in and stay a while, enjoying the Southern hospitality. “Dropped in with my spouse after a lunch date just to look around,” writes one customer. “We spent a lovely hour or so…

Retail Profile: Kitchen a la Mode

Owner: Ben Salmon Location: South Orange, N.J. Founded: 2008 Square Footage: 1,000 sq. ft. Many retailers use Facebook. Not so many enjoy using it, choosing to turn the medium over to tech savvy underlings or to outsource social media altogether. Ben Salmon of Kitchen a la Mode in South Orange, N.J., is a bit different and he doesn’t shy away from Facebook. In fact,…

Retail Profile: Now You’re Cooking

Retailer: Now You’re Cooking Owners: Jerry Martins, Barbara Lynn Location: Ithaca, N.Y. Founded: 1986 Square footage: 1,500 net sq ft When is a kitchen sieve not a kitchen sieve? When it an aphid separator, says Jerry Martins, who should know. As one of the owners of Now You’re Cooking, in the college town of Ithaca, N.Y., Martins and his business partner Barbara Lynn count…