Cooke’s Fine Foods expands into kitchen goods with new store next door

The owners of longtime Kingston staple Cooke’s fine foods opened a second store carrying kitchen supplies this morning. Cooke’s Essentials for the Kitchen is directly next door to the existing store in the storefront previously occupied by Oderin Kitchen Supplies.

Owner Susan Cooke said she was “really excited that the whole building is now Cooke’s,” recalling that “When Cooke’s first opened, this was all part of the same store. We’re sort of coming back to our roots.”

Susan’s grandfather, Hugh Cooke, bought the store in 1924, and during that time “this side sold the wines and liquors, and that side sold the food. That’s the way it was configured when my grandfather first came to work here in 1910.”

“Of course, in the 30s prohibition came in, so he couldn’t sell wines and liquors, so he had the idea to just change this into a separate store that could be leased out. Up until the end of January of this year, it had been leased out to somebody else.”

Susan expressed that they strove to carry a “good assortment of things” that were high quality, but affordable.  Quoting Martha Stewart, she said “you need the right tool for the job,” and noted that she wanted to make “a happy place to come shop” so customers could “go home and be happy cooking.”

“We spend a lot of time preparing food,” Susan said, gesturing to the walls of colourful kitchen tools. “Whether its your tea towel or your gadget or whatever, when you use something every day, you want it to make you smile.”

Cooke’s Essentials for the Kitchen is located at 57 Brock street and is open as of Thursday, May 09, 2019.