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Gourmet Garage is a chain of specialty/natural food markets with four locations in Manhattan as of 2022. The enterprise began as Flying Foods, a specialty food distributor, and transitioned into retail in 1992. [1] Gourmet Garage's 3 locations were purchased by Village Super Markets, a member of the Wakefern Food Corporation cooperative, in 2019. [2]
Flying Foods was launched in 1981 by three young entrepreneurs believed to have also been college roommates, Andy Arons and Walter Martin, and Paul Moriates, whom Martin met during a brief tenure working at Waldorf Astoria Hotel. [3] Their mission was claimed to be the importation of fresh foods that were not available in the United States at the time and sell them to chefs at high end restaurants in New York City, and elsewhere across the country [4] . By 1987, when the business was sold to Kraft Foods, it had grown from one office to four and both imported foreign products and exported American artisan-made food overseas. [5]
Gourmet Garage is said to have begun as a distributor in an actual garage space in [6] Soho only opening their doors to the general public when trucks from commercial clients left. In 1992, the store formally opened on Wooster Street in Soho. Arons partnered with Adam Hartman, a CPA who had helped negotiate the sale of Flying Foods, and two food business veterans, John Gottfried and Edwin Visser, to open the retailer, [7] which prided itself on the stark contrast to specialty stores of that period. Gottfried told the New York Daily Press, "The previous approach was to sell this stuff like jewelry. We sell it like produce." [8]
In 1994, the business moved to a larger space at the corner of Broome and Mercer in Soho. The following year they opened a new location in a former garage space on the East 64th St., still selling their high quality products at a slightly lower price. [9] Gourmet Garage continued to pursue that audience throughout Manhattan, opening stores on the Upper East Side, in Greenwich Village, and near Lincoln Center. [7] A new store in Tribeca opened in mid September 2015.
Gourmet Garage has continued to develop relationships with local producers, and the product mix of the stores is heavily weighted towards fresh products and prepared foods. [7]
Whole Foods Market, Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon, is an American multinational supermarket chain headquartered in Austin, Texas, which sells products free from hydrogenated fats and artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. A USDA Certified Organic grocer in the United States, the chain is popularly known for its organic selections. As of March 4, 2019, Whole Foods has more than 500 stores in North America and seven in the United Kingdom.
Fauchon is a French gourmet food and delicatessen company that was founded in 1886 in Paris, France. Fauchon is considered a major reference in contemporary French gourmet foods, and it had 81 outlets in operation around the world as of 2019.
Ingles Markets, Inc. is an American supermarket chain based in Black Mountain, North Carolina. As of September 2021, the company operates 198 supermarkets in the Appalachian region of the Southeastern United States. The company is listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol IMKTA and is part of the Global Select Market tier of trading.
Central Market is an American gourmet grocery store chain owned by H-E-B Grocery Company based in San Antonio, Texas. Most locations also have a full-service kitchen, offer cooking and wine classes in their culinary school, and offer catering services. The chain has ten locations, all in Texas. Central Market was named "Outstanding Specialty Food Retailer" by Specialty Food Magazine and the National Association for Specialty Food Trade.
SuperValu, Inc., was an American wholesaler and retailer of grocery products. The company, formerly headquartered in the Minneapolis suburb of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, had been in business since 1926. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of United Natural Foods (UNFI).
Wild Oats Marketplace is a producer of natural and organic food distributed through partnerships in the United States.
Bristol Farms is an upscale grocery store chain in California, United States. Founded in Los Angeles County, Bristol Farms operates 19 stores: 13 as Bristol Farms locations and 6 branded as Lazy Acres Markets throughout Southern California. The company is currently owned by Good Food Holdings.
ABC Stores is a chain of convenience stores based in Honolulu. The chain operates 73 stores, 58 of which are located in the state of Hawaii, with the remaining locations in the Mariana Islands (1), Las Vegas (6), and Guam (8). The company now generates more than $230 million in annual sales and employs over 1500 staff, and is described as the 37th largest company in Hawaii.
Balducci's Food Lover's Market is a specialty gourmet food retailer in the Mid-Atlantic United States with eight grocery stores, owned by Albertsons since 2020.
Rice Epicurean Markets was an American niche grocery store chain based in Southwest Houston, Houston, Texas. There is now just one supermarket left of the chain. Prior to 2012 the company operated five Rice Epicurean Markets, which ranged in size from 25,000 to 42,000 square feet (3,900 m2). At its height, it operated 35 stores. The last Rice Epicurean Market is wholly owned by founding family members.
Joseph Schmidt Confections was a San Francisco-based chocolatier, which created gourmet confections with imported Belgian chocolate. The line of confections included truffles of various sizes, slicks, and mosaics. Joseph Schmidt confections ceased operations in 2009.
Omni Superstore was a chain of supermarkets in the Chicago area and was owned by Dominick's. In 1997, Dominick's phased out Omni and converted the stores into Dominick's because the concept was not generating enough revenue compared to other Dominick's stores.
Until its closing in 2010, Simon David was the oldest gourmet and specialty foods store in Dallas, Texas. Simon David was a long-time specialty retail brand and division of Tom Thumb Supermarkets. Tom Thumb became a division of Randalls in 1992, which itself became a 112-store division of Safeway Inc. in 1999.
McLane is an American wholesale supply chain services company that distributes products to convenience stores, discount retailers, wholesale clubs, drug stores, military bases, fast-food restaurants, and casual dining restaurants throughout the United States. It is also a wholesale distributor of distilled beverages in some parts of the country.
Gristedes is a New York City–based chain of supermarkets. It serves a mostly urban customer base.
The Gourmet Ghetto is a colloquial name for the business district of the North Berkeley neighborhood in the city of Berkeley, California, known as the birthplace of California cuisine. Other developments that can be traced to this neighborhood include specialty coffee, the farm-to-table and local food movements, the rise to popularity in the U.S. of chocolate truffles and baguettes, the popularization of the premium restaurant designed around an open kitchen, and the California pizza made with local produce. After coalescing in the mid-1970s as a culinary destination, the neighborhood received its "Gourmet Ghetto" nickname in the late 1970s from comedian Darryl Henriques. Early, founding influences were Peet's Coffee, Chez Panisse and the Cheese Board Collective. Alice Medrich began her chain of Cocolat chocolate stores there.
United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI) is a Providence, Rhode Island–based natural and organic food company. The largest publicly traded wholesale distributor of health and specialty food in the United States and Canada, it is Whole Foods Market's main supplier, with their traffic making up over a third of its revenue in 2018.
Best Market was a family-owned, regional supermarket chain with 30 stores in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey. The company was headquartered in Bethpage, New York, and had been owned by the Raitses family since the company's first store opened in Lake Ronkonkoma, New York, in 1994.
The San Juan Market is a traditional Mexican market in the historic center of Mexico City that has become the city’s only such market specializing in gourmet and exotic foods. It is known for its selection of exotic meats, including venison, crocodile, wild boar and even lion meat, as well as a wide selection of products from Europe and the Americas. Unlike other such markets in Mexico City, it caters to chefs, restaurateurs and foodies, many of whom are foreigners and have long-standing relationships with particular vendors.
A specialty food is a food that is typically considered as a "unique and high-value food item made in small quantities from high-quality ingredients". Consumers typically pay higher prices for specialty foods, and may perceive them as having various benefits compared to non-specialty foods.
