SHOPPING
PHOTOS COURTESY OF PEPPERCORN
Peppercorn:
Boulder’s Iconic Kitchen Supply Store BY SARAH K UTA THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC DISRUPTED NEARLY EVERY FACET OF OUR LIVES — SCHOOL, WORK, SOCIALIZING, EXERCISING. BUT FOR MANY PEOPLE, PERHAPS THE BIGGEST CHANGE BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE PANDEMIC WAS ALL THE EXTRA TIME SPENT AT HOME.
And with restaurants closed or offering limited seating, a curious trend began to emerge: People started cooking. Even people who’d never touched a saute pan or whose cooking skills stopped at pressing a few buttons on the microwave suddenly found themselves in the kitchen, exploring and experimenting with food. Peppercorn — the long-standing kitchen supply store on Boulder’s Pearl Street — was right there with them, every step of the way. Like many businesses during the pandemic, Peppercorn had to pivot its business model toward online shopping and delivery, but
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remained true to its core mission of providing high-quality kitchen essentials to home cooks. “People were ordering a lot of cookware online — that’s how it all started,” said Janice Manville, Peppercorn’s vice-president and a long-time employee of the store. “All of a sudden, we were getting all these cookware orders and we thought, ‘We’d better fill them.’ It was a lot of junior chefs and more men were cooking. Everyone started thinking, ‘Well, I’m home now, might as well just do this.’ It did show people they were capable of doing it.” Long before the pandemic, Peppercorn has been supplying home chefs with the tools, gadgets, decorations, accessories, books and materials they need to be successful in the kitchen. The company’s history dates back to 1977, when Doris Houghland and a friend moved to Boulder and started a cooking school.
