THE COOK’S WAREHOUSE From an “a-ha” moment to 20 years of success

By Mary Moore

I grew up on a farm west of Atlanta. My great aunt and great uncle lived off the same driveway as me and my family, and my grandmother and great aunt one driveway over. We lived on a farm raising broiler chickens, cows and pigs, and grew many of our own vegetables. My mom, grandmother and great aunts loved to cook – and from an early age, so did I! While putting myself through college at Georgia State University, I determined that I needed to make the most amount of money in the least amount of time – waiting tables of course. I quickly determined that the “front of the house” wasn’t my forte. I was at Shipfeifer’s on Peachtree and lucky enough that the owners liked me and wanted me to stay. I said, “I want to work Monday through Friday during the day, in the kitchen, so I can go to school part time.” They said “OK,” beginning my next culinary journey.

I worked my way to assistant manager after about a year, and knew that what I really wanted to do was serious food. I interviewed at Indigo Coastal Grill and started as a day prep cook shucking oysters and peeling carrots. I worked my way through the kitchen and onto the night shift as garde (salad) manager, then grill, then saute and eventually kitchen manager and expeditor. I also worked the same for a sister restaurant next door, Partners Morningside Café, as well as day chef.

After graduating from college, I went on to work at Harry’s Farmers Market in research and development soon after Harry’s went public. After about six months I became the director of research and development at Harry’s.

On a trip to New York in November 1993 with my friend and colleague, the renowned chef Scott Peacock, to cook in the Green Market on behalf of Harry’s, we discovered Scott had forgotten the crepe pan. We toured many Manhattan cookware shops to no avail, but Scott said, “I know where we can get one,” and the cab took us to Bridge Kitchenware.

Bridge Kitchenware was a cross between a store, a warehouse and a wholesale cooking supply store. I was dumbfounded by the range of cooking implements carried by Fred Bridge in his store, which was a favorite of Julia Child, Jacques Pépin, Andre Soltner and every professional chef in Manhattan.

I walked out, crepe pan in hand, and had my epiphany: “This is it, I’m going to have a store like this in Atlanta!” And so began The Cook’s Warehouse.

Still at Harry’s, I got serious in early September 1994 about opening my store, wrote a business plan and was turned down by eight banks. I called my friend Cici Coffee, of Natural Body, for advice. We went to see Cici’s banker at Bank Atlanta, and with my grandmother Mimi co-signing my SBA loan and personal loans from three friends who believed in me, I began my business.

I opened the first The Cook’s Warehouse in the Amsterdam Walk Shopping Center on Amsterdam Avenue in Midtown Atlanta on March 14, 1995.

The first few years were incredibly lean, but with Mimi’s house on the line, I could not fail. Luckily, I knew how to make great macaroni and cheese, and ate a lot of it.

I partnered with Doug Bryant, founder of Sherlock’s Wine Merchant, to open hybrid stores in Decatur in 2005 and Merchant’s Walk in East Cobb in 2006, which is when the online store at cookswarehouse.com also opened for business.

We have now grown from two employees in one store to 80+ associates in four retail locations, and have a rapidly growing online business. We’ve also grown the largest avocational cooking school in the Southeast with more than 800 cooking classes each year.

We’re also proud to have raised more than $400,000 for the Atlanta Community Food Bank, and have made donations to 1,700 other local organizations and nonprofits. The Cook’s Warehouse has held an astonishing 6,500 cooking classes and taught more than 75,000 students.

And Mimi kept her house!

Here come the food trucks...

Atlanta was a little late to the food truck craze, but once it caught on, you couldn’t turn a corner without running into a line of hungry folks waiting for barbecue, curry, Thai or a popsicle from the King of Pops. Foodie Thom Volarath wrote our cover feature about “Street Eats” in September 2010 issue.