The Store, Waitsfield. Exclusively listed by Vermont Commercial Real Estate.
After 54 years of family ownership, The Store, in Waitsfield, is ready for new owners.
Located in the Mad River Valley, Vermont, home of Sugarbush and Mad River Glen, The Store is a gourmet housewares store with a full chef’s kitchen and learning center offering popular public and private cooking classes.
The Mad River Valley made national headlines when the sale of Sugarbush Resort to Alterra Mountain Company was announced this month. It was in Sugarbush Village that The Store got its start in 1965 when Jackie Rose, seeing a need for a place to buy kitchenware and home accessories, opened the business in the ski in village adjacent to the slopes. That was at the beginning of the condominium craze and The Store was a must visit destination.
In 1985 Jackie purchased a former 1834 Methodist Meeting House in Waitsfield which she restored and filled with kitchen tools, home accessories and carefully selected antiques. The result is an open soaring space with exposed beams and massive church windows, antiques used throughout for displays and oriental rugs underfoot. Since that time, The Store has been a retail anchor and hub in Waitsfield. The addition of the teaching kitchen in 2008 added a new dimension to the business with a Culinary Institute of America trained chef offering multiple public and private classes each week such as Moroccan, French, Crepes, fondue and more.
Jackie and her daughter Kathy, who joined her in managing The Store in 2000, watched the growth of the food network with Farm to Plate movement in Vermont along with the local food movement and felt the addition of cooking classes was timely –and it has proven to be.
Jackie passed away in 2014 and Kathy is ready to move on to new opportunities, so The Store – like Sugarbush – is ready for new owners. Kathy says the new owners will have the ability to take the business to the next level, including into e-commerce and more focused on food.
With Lawson’s Finest Liquids 2 blocks away and The Mad River Valley’s newest brewery and taproom, Collaborative Brewing, across the street, The Kitchen at The Store is ideally situated.
In addition to the teaching kitchen, there are several things that have contributed to The Store’s success over 5 decades. The quality of the merchandise has never varied. It started out top shelf and has remained that way with an extensive selection of Le Creuset, Wusthof and April Cornell.
The Store has excellent and long-term staffers who offer personalized customer service, coffee, tea and free gift wrapping. That coupled with the extensive offerings such as professional knives, a selection of beautiful dish towels, bath and body works, kitchen utensils and gadgets, wines, cheeses, olive oils, baking paraphernalia and much more makes the shopping experience unforgettable. Additionally, there’s an upper loft full of hand-picked early American antiques.
Additional information:
6000 square feet
2.5 acres
Recent HVAC upgrades
New siding/paint/roof
220 and 110 amp power
Town water
Private well
Street facing façade with extensive stonework and landscaping
Full basement with ramp
Ample parking on both sides of Route 100
Inventory includes upper floor of early American antiques