-By Sherry Hoffman

Store Stats
Number of Stores: 7 brick-and-mortar, 1 Internet for gift baskets
Year Opened: 1994
Web Site: www.gardenofedengourmet.com; www.edengourmet.com

Forget Disneyland. The happiest place on earth just may be in South Orange, N.J., now that they have the Eden Gourmet Market. Three years ago, townsfolk staged a candlelight vigil parading placards asking "Got Milk?" because they didn't have a grocery store. They now have 13,000 square feet of edible eye candy, increased property values and a very good neighbor.

A World Apart
The store sits at the top of a "T" staring down at a renovated shopping plaza that houses new millennium stores like Cold Stone Creamery.

Enter through Eden's sidewalk entrance and the smell of freshly made apple cider doughnuts takes you back to grandma's kitchen. Then you're snapped back by the crackle of rice as it explodes into what rice cakes aspire to -- not Styrofoam, but tasty, soft thin disks with a slight crunch that quickly melts in your mouth. You've only been in the store two minutes, the tasting has begun and your senses are on alert.

If you enter via the parking lot, you find yourself in a Peter Max painting where fruits and vegetables radiate psychedelic colors and are so fresh you wonder if you smell pineapple, quince or some other natural wonder you never knew existed.

The landscape is lush and inviting. The beef is hung and is the color it should be -- not red, but a dusty brown from 21 days of dry-aging; the seafood smells like, well, like nothing; the bread is made from scratch; and edible art desserts are prepared by pastry chef Angie Opanukij, classically trained at the California Culinary Academy. She offers you a taste of lychee, rose and raspberry chiffon, and a cloud enters your mouth.

From Ruins Comes Hope
South Orange is so close to Manhattan yet so far from 15 varieties of fresh mushrooms that foodies were starving when this Camelot rose from the remnants of an abandoned building. The day before the May 10 grand opening, Mario Andreani, a recent partner in the 14-year-old firm, explained how Eden Gourmet has helped revitalize South Orange.

"The people in town were screaming 'got milk' because they had none. The nearest store was a Pathmark about a mile away, so coming off the train, you couldn't even buy a container of milk. We heard the story, appreciated the problem but didn't pay any mind to it until the city reached out to us.

"The reason we agreed was partly the location. There's a tremendously diversified base of consumers that are very educated. The other factor was a lot of our customers live around here. They shop at our 14th and 23rd Street stores in Manhattan, and what's better than to have Eden Gourmet in their backyard?

"This site was an abandoned ShopRite supermarket and an eyesore in the middle of town. The residents wanted the redevelopment of the town's center and a developer wanted to build condos, but it was decided that an anchor was needed and that anchor had to be a major food retailer.

"The building had been empty for about nine years. When we first walked in, we could see the sky from the first floor and the rear wall had fallen in. We kept the brick that remained because it looked authentic and also the side wall, but other than that it's all new construction. It cost us about $9.5 million to open this store."

Family Ties
Eden Gourmet is the spinoff company of Garden of Eden Gourmet Markets, which opened its first store in 1994, after the owners spent two years on Second Avenue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan selling produce out of a truck while working in shifts 20 hours a day.

Company president Mustafa Coskun says, "Our first store was on Third Avenue and 23rd Street in Manhattan. It's 12,000 square feet. When I came here in 1987, I saw there was a need for a gourmet market. My father had a grocery business in Turkey and I grew up in that environment and always helped my father. It was my dream to create something of my own that was much different than anyone else."

Garden of Eden Gourmet Market has opened five stores in Manhattan and Brooklyn since 1994. A few years ago, Coskun and his brother John began a partnership with Steve Katzman and Andreani, both of S. Katzman Produce, one of the largest produce operations in the Hunts Point Terminal Market in the Bronx, N.Y. The customer base now reaches the entire Northeast plus Canada, Europe and the North Atlantic. S. Katzman "spawned" ex-buyer Pete Charles, better known as Produce Pete, a regular contributor to the Weekend Today Show.

The new partnership, Eden Gourmet, opened its first store at The Pier Shops at Caesars at One Atlantic Ocean on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. South Orange is the second and its flagship store. Coskun says they've already started looking for their next location.

"I've known these guys 20 years and they're the kind of people I trust," says Andreani. "Successful partnerships are very rare and harder than marriages, so knowing that they would be good people to partner up with was terrific."

While partnerships may work well, their choices may not, like opening at the two-year-old Pier Shops at Caesars. Modeled after the Forum in Las Vegas, stores are high-end like Tiffany and Co., Baccarat, and restaurants Buddakan and The Continental. Eden Gourmet is on the second level at the ocean end of the pier, restaurants are on level three.

"The mall is so excited about charging ridiculous rents, no one knows about it," Andreani laments. "They only promote the restaurants. Eden Gourmet isn't like this (South Orange), it's small, a little coffee shop. The Pier is a great place to look but no one's going to shop there. It was a big mistake on our part but it's done. Even if we close it up and take the penalties, you hate failing when it's not your own failure. You get problems with help and you don't have any movement on products so that starts to suffer. I'm running trucks there three times a week. It's killing me. But I don't know what to do. I'm hoping that it turns around but I don't see it unless they change their whole philosophy."

Eden Gourmet at the Pier is considerably smaller than the South Orange store. In addition to the 13,000 square feet of retail space on the main floor, South Orange has two additional floors for dining.

The store had a soft opening April 30, and Mustafa says it's too early to tell whether the store was the right decision. However, nearly 400 posts from Eden customers on Maplewoodonline.com scream a resounding "Yes."

A casual café and a full-service restaurant are in mid-construction on the second floor. Dividing the two is a two-story atrium with water curtains on either side. The walls are dark wood and exposed brick, the floors a rich dark wood giving the room a warm, comfortable feel. There are two outdoor terraces.

Kristyn Zlyka, company spokesperson says, "We're reaching out to The Culinary Institute of America, The Institute of Culinary Education and The French Culinary Institute hoping to find a chef to be very creative and work around the seasonal ingredients and what local purveyors are giving us. We'll also give people a comfortable but high-end place to come."

The casual café will serve pizza from wood-burning ovens, salads and simple sandwiches.

The third floor will have a kitchen, a catering staff and will be used for private parties, cooking demonstrations, book signings and other special events.

Andreani laughs and reports, "Three people called and wanted to book us for bar mitzvahs and we don't even have permits. When we told them that, they still asked us to hold the dates."

With between 12,000 and 20,000 different product types, the store is a carousel of wonder. Eden's tag line "Temptation in every aisle" is perfect. The store is like a museum needing more than one visit to see it all. The array of olive oil alone is astounding, filling eight seven-foot shelves. The presentation of the store's "bars" is camera-worthy. Whether salad, yogurt, olive, pickle, fresh juice, smoothie, prepared hot foods or cold food bars, the food is fresh, and no food has been "contaminated" by the food in the bin beside it.

The partners all come from fruit and produce backgrounds, and it shows. In many supermarkets, the produce hasn't been looking as good as it used to, but this is not the case at Eden Gourmet. All beautifully displayed in baskets to give a European open-air market feel, the produce is the star of the show. Everything is available to taste. Like Adam and Eve's garden, this Eden is full of new finds. Some examples include goldenberries, originally from the Cape of Good Hope -- they have just recently begun to receive attention in the States; Pom Pom mushrooms -- a mild, sweet taste and pleasant texture similar to lobster or very tender veal, best known for their use in treating digestive tract and nervous system ailments; and Guatemalan Sweet Rambutan, a white-fleshed not-too-sweet, grape-textured fruit that's covered with red skin and long tan needles.

Valuable Asset
The coming of Eden Gourmet to South Orange not only increased property values, it has also contributed to the good and welfare of the town. The store donated 10 percent of opening-day receipts (which Andreani estimates at between $25,000 to $35,000) back into the redevelopment of the community. The flower baskets they've donated to line the streets are a small gesture compared to what they've done for local businesses.

Coskun says, "When we open a store, we always look for local suppliers to be able to carry their products." This generosity of spirit has been a major boon to Dan Mancini who had the recipe for his mother's meatballs. He brought some samples into the store and, with one bite, built Dan's Meatballs, soon to be seen on the Home Shopping Network. The products from Zayda's, a kosher restaurant down the street, now have refrigerated cases in many of the chain's seven stores. The store will also begin regular donations of food to three of the town's nonprofit organizations.

"The challenges of opening a store of this magnitude are daunting," says Mario Andreani. The first is "keeping a foothold on the 200 to 300 purveyors. Some see a store like this and see dollar signs, and then you find you're higher priced than ShopRite. And watching 12,000 SKUs. This morning, I had a fight with the milkman. There's a ShopRite, a Kings and two Whole Foods nearby. It's very intimidating." And this is coming from a food chain whose five stores grossed $50–$60 million last year, and that's without advertising or marketing. It wasn't until South Orange that they hired an advertising and marketing consultant.

"Another huge problem is help," says Andreani. "This generation is lacking enthusiastic, hungry, family-oriented, responsible people in every way. Everybody will tell you the biggest problem is labor, not the cost of food. Anyone who thinks they pay too much for food should leave the country and see how much people really pay for food."

What does he want to tell retailers? First a big laugh, then, "Don't do it." A pause. Then, "I'm only kidding. It's not a business to get into because you think you'll make money. You better enjoy what you're doing and have people around you who know what they're doing. The consumer is your lifeline and you have to listen."

Andreani, with a big grin, says it's all worth it. "To come in the first week and feel what these people felt. They looked all over the store for the owners, just to thank us. Everybody's happy, smiling and ecstatic. It's really wild."


Garden of Eden Gourmet
Brooklyn - 1994
Corporate Offices:
588 Baltic Street
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Toll Free: 866-222-0434
Tel: 718-852-7721
Fax: 718-852-7556
Open: Mon-Fri 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
President and CEO: Mustafa Coskun

Brooklyn Heights -1998
180 Montague Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Tel: 718-222-1515
Fax: 718-222-9970
Open: Mon-Sat 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Sun 7 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Manager: Munir Kona

Chelsea - 1994
62 West 23rd Street
New York, NY 10011
Tel: 212-675-6300
Fax: 212-675-2559
Open: Sun-Sat 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Manager: Mike Coskun

Union Square - 1997
7 East 14th Street
New York, NY 10003
Tel: 212-255-4200
Fax: 212-255-4159
Open: Sun-Sat 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Manager: Juan Larios

Upper West Side – 1999
780 Broadway
New York, NY 10025
Tel: 212-222-7300
Fax: 212-222-8656
Open: Tue-Sun 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Manager: Memet Yildirim

Hoboken, NJ - 2000
226 Washington Street
Hoboken, NJ 07030
Tel: 201-659-0355
Fax: 201-659-0455
Open: Mon-Sat 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Sun 7 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Manager: Michael Bush

Eden Gourmet
Atlantic City, NJ - 2006
The Pier Shops At Caesar's
One Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic City, NJ 08401
Tel: 609-344-7580
Fax: 609-344-7581
Open: Mon-Thurs 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Fri-Sat 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Sun 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Manager: Dan Colby

Flagship
South Orange, NJ - 2008
1-7 South Orange Avenue
South Orange, NJ 07079
Total area: 35,000 square feet
1st floor: 13,000 square feet, retail
2nd floor: casual café/fine dining/outdoor dining on two terraces
3rd floor: private parties/meeting space
Tel: 973-762-5200
Fax: 973-762-5250
Open: 7 Days, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Manager: Ali Colak

Comments? mmoran@gourmetretailer.com