UMass Magazine Online

Winter 2005

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Extended Family

The Neighborhood Gourmet
How a philosophy major came to create one of the hippest grocery stores

–Deborah Klenotic




	Gourmet Garage founder Andy Arons. (photo by Ben Barnhart)

AT GOURMET GARAGE IN GREENWICH Village, shoppers apologize amiably as they bump baskets and shoulders, reaching for pints of fresh tikka masala sauce, loaves of Balthazar bread, or bags of microgreens.

Exuberantly stocked with culinary pleasures from across the world, Gourmet Garage is still the “neighborhood larder,” as president and CEO Andy Arons ’81, calls it. It mixes the wonder of the new—fruits of the earth prepared in innovative ways—with the bonhomie of a corner store that’s small, bright and staffed by a faithful crew.
Even as upscale food giants Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s zero in on New York City, the smaller Gourmet Garage is thriving. Arons has just opened a new store on Park Avenue in the Upper East Side, his fifth location in Manhattan since he founded the company with a business partner in 1992.

In 2004 Gourmet Garage was named one of the top three food retailers in New York by the industry consulting group Cascadia, which cited the company’s lead role in launching new brands. When you need a smackerel of something for your inner Pooh, sink a spoon into a jar of honey from Kangaroo Island, Australia, home to the world’s last remaining pure strain of the Italian Ligurian bee. Want your omega-3s but don’t care for the strong taste of salmon? Take home some ivory king salmon, acclaimed by West Coast chefs for its delicate flavor and silkiness. Crave better butter? Try Beurre D’Isigny Extra-Fin from France, packed in a little round wooden crate with a red-and-white-checked tissue paper frilling out from under the top. Even salt goes gourmet in Atmosphere’s sea salt mixed with Roman chamomile, St. John’s wart, lemon balm, and other “hand-harvested tasty elements.” There’s a grinder on top of the jar for fresh-milled flavor.

A place where neighborhood regulars share small aisles with olive-bar addicts eating their weight in free samples and enrapt browsers inching along the shelves, Gourmet Garage has a convivial energy that clearly reflects Arons’s openness to good food and the people who create it and appreciate it.

Arons lives in Soho with his wife, Elyce, who is the business partner of the designer Kate Spade, and their two daughters. Although a typical day has him in the office, ordering or tasting food, or jetting off on a shopping trip, he’s genuinely glad to show a visitor around the store. Fast-talking and slim in navy blue sweater, jeans, and tony leather shoes, he still moves like a hardworking college guy, deftly returning the stray pear to its proper place, as he discusses life at the top of the food chain.

UM: What does gourmet mean today?
AA: Lighter and healthier is where everything is going. For example, the old deli case, with tons of olive oil on the food to keep it shiny all day, is out. Now we have dishes like grilled free-range chicken breast with sweet peppers and green apples. What’s cool about the U.S. is that we have an international blending and the openness to incorporate fusions of different food cultures. Chefs really drive this interest, and they’re directing it into making healthy food gourmet food.

UM: How is Gourmet Garage a brand builder?
AA: We’re good for new brands because we don’t have a thousand administrative levels, like Whole Foods. If it’s good, give it to us; if it’s new, give it to us. Every month, our assistant store managers bring in five new products—animal, vegetable, or mineral. Our management team sits down every other week with a big mountain of samples and we taste everything. Other stores don’t operate like this. Often, you’ll see a new brand in Gourmet Garage and then you’ll see it in Food Emporium or another supermarket. Along with just a handful of other stores, we influence the influencers.

UM: What impact are Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s having on your stores?
AA: Trader Joe’s isn’t in New York yet but is coming. We’re notched up from them and down from Whole Foods, which is the 800-pound gorilla of healthy food. I don’t mean this negatively; I know those guys and like them. A Whole Foods just went in 14 blocks away from us, with 40,000 square feet to our 5,000. So far, all we’ve lost is two percent of our weekend business. We’re really urban—very “neighborhoody.” A cat doesn’t compare and compete with a lion.

UM: Free-range chickens for $3 a pound; Callebut chocolate, $4 a pound; apricot jam from Italy, $2.99, buy one, get one free—some of your prices are surprisingly good.
AA: We try to give people a good deal in New York—artists, dancers, waiters, not just people who have a lot of money to spend.

UM: A dozen butters?!
AA: And they all taste different. In the D’Isigny, which comes from a northwest region of France, you’ll taste the slightest hint of grass.

UM: Is France your favorite shopping trip?
AA: It’s a favorite, not the only favorite. France, of course, has been food-focused for hundreds of years. On every street corner there’s a gourmet shop selling, for example, just one type of cheese. The French are just now emerging from being trapped in their utter Frenchness and are starting to be more open with regard to food.

UM: You stock organic black, green, and orange heirloom tomatoes. Do they sell?
AA: People used to think heirloom tomatoes were ugly. They wanted the red croquet ball. Now people have started to catch on to the great flavor and looks of the heirlooms.

UM: What do you like to cook?
AA: I’ve been inspired by chefs like Andre Soltner of Lutece, Alice Waters, the wonderful Swiss chef Freddie Girardet. I like to find absolutely the freshest ingredients and not do very much with them, like putting fresh truffles in scrambled eggs. Elyce and I often throw dinner parties for 10 to 20 people, and we include some dishes that can be made easily at the last minute, so we can engage guests in preparation of the meal. This strategy always ends up with maximum wine consumption and fun.

UM: Where do your tastes fall in the healthy–gourmet spectrum?
AA: I used to be like, “If it’s good, fatty, yummy, delicious, bring it on.” Now I’m 45 and more health-conscious. I’m mixing a green goop into orange and mango juice and soymilk in the morning. I forget what it’s for, but it’s something healthy.

UM: Did you always want to be in the food business?
AA: I was a philosophy major, so the doors of opportunity were just swinging open! As a kid, I had a thousand jobs—Sears automotive department, busboy on Martha’s Vineyard. When I was at UMass Amherst, I worked at Herter Gallery, Stadium Liquors, and Steak-Out. In my senior year, I worked for Pinocchios. I’d be wearing their poncho and rain hat and delivering pizzas up to the freshman dorms, and they’d say, “Here’s a quarter.” A little depressing.

UM: Success has certainly been the fruit—or vice versa, in this case—of your labors.
AA: Still, I’d clean the bathroom floor if I had to, and I punch in every day. I get the chills when I think that the day I was dropped off in New York after I graduated from college was 15 – no, 23! – years ago. Professor John Brigham visits often. He’s a great guy. I’d love to get some more UMass Amherst people down here.

UM: So you didn’t play store when you were a kid?
AA; No, I thought I’d be a lawyer—you know, the Jewish family expectation. But nothing else is as immediate, interesting, and fun as the food business. It’s alive, international. Food is the great common denominator.

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