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CHEESE FOCUS RUBINER'S
CHEESEMONGERS & GROCERS
264 Main St.
Great Barrington, MA 413.528.0488 rubiners.com
TOTAL AREA: 2,300 square feet Retail: 1,200 square feet Café: 900 square feet
AVERAGE DAILY RETAIL + CAFE TRANSACTIONS: High season: 160 Low season: 25
AVERAGE TRANSACTION ($): Store: $25–$30 Cafe: $6.50
ANNUAL REVENUE: $1.1 million (55% store, 45% café)
cheeses and deli meats at lunch, and—an outgrowth of the seafood program—a raw bar on weekend evenings, with shellfish, shrimp cocktails and a weekly fish stew. "We have no proper kitchen," Rubiner
notes. "If we can't make it on one induction burner, in a convection oven, or in a panini press, we can't make it." Too small to sup- port a chef, the café instead relies on simple preparations made with top-notch ingre- dients. Best sellers include an oozy fondue panino and a Welsh rarebit pressed sand- wich made with Sparkenhoe Red Leicester cheese, mustard and a local beer. "I knew from Formaggio Kitchen that if you're going to carry this much perishable stuff, you're going to need other ways to sell it," Rubiner explains. The café also highlights specialty ingredients, sending customers back to the store for the prosciutto or Marcel Petite Comté used in a sandwich. "The café is the engine of sales when
the store can't be," Rubiner adds. "Without the café, the store could not exist." |SFM|
Janet Fletcher is the weekly cheese columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and the author of Cheese & Wine: A Guide to Selecting, Pairing and Enjoying.
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