[Lippy]

Really Cool Foods, the brainchild of Bill Valentine, opened very recently. The premise is that the customer will buy the already-prepared raw ingredients to make a dish using color-coded recipe cards. In addition to the prepared ingredients there are some grocery items like butter, yogurt, cheese and chocolate, as well as a heavily edited selection of high-end kitchen utensils. To make it attractive to the well-heeled residents of the neighborhood, prices are very high.

The day I dropped in someone was making chili for sampling. I tasted. The cook asked my opinion. I made a little face and responded that it was too sweet. He told me, proudly, before I finished talking, what was in the chili. I pointed out to him that he had asked my opinion but didn't bother to listen to what I said. He asked me to repeat and when I did, he turned away, muttering.

There were a lot of people in the store, looking, but not buying. Will it fly? I don't think so, but what do I know about business?

[Pingarina]

Lippy, on Jun 13 2006, 02:55 PM, said:

To make it attractive to the well-heeled residents of the neighborhood, prices are very high.

There were a lot of people in the store, looking, but not buying. Will it fly? I don't think so, but what do I know about business?

Plenty

[g.johnson]

It makes some sense for things that need to be freshly prepared (pretty much any fish, for example) but no sense at all for chili which might as well be bought fully cooked.

[StephanieL]

There was a brief article in New York Magazine this week. The author compared mac & cheese made with ingredients from there (including precooked pasta) to homemade and takeout from Blue Smoke. Really Cool Foods' version came in last.

[juuceman]

wrong demographic for this type of thing, in my opinion.. citarella, zabars, grace's, etc. all provide pre-chopped and or semi-prepared foods in the same or similar veins.. throw in the local delis, niche-markets, etc. and the neighborhood is overflowing with prepared and semi-prepared foods.. in more rural areas, where people don't want take out or to eat out, this is more likely to work..

[splinky]

the storefront closed last week. wonder if the storefront was just to introduce the brand and concept. i hear that they are building a hundred million dollar plant out in the mid-west and have distribution deals with whole foods. but to close with no notice seems to be a bad sign. i think it was just way to expensive and too much work to prepare when so many other places exist serving easy heat and eat

[Suzanne F]

Article in last week's NY Times special section on small businesses discussing how the trend for "meal assembly shops" has cooled off.

[Lippy]

Article in last week's NY Times special section on small businesses discussing how the trend for "meal assembly shops" has cooled off.

They dropped that concept very early and after they did, there was nothing distinctive about the store, except for its very limited and oddly chosen stock. I was surprised it lasted as long as it did.

[splinky]

it was near my dentist's office and was my go to place for yogurt and french sugar cubes as i was rushing home but otherwise a pretty worthless and expensive store