Five things about our first six weeks

Spoiler: I just love having a store

When I posted my last update, we had been open just five days. In that post, I called it a “soft open”, because Haritha spent the bulk of that first week working with Canada Post to digitize over 30 years of post office box information (while occasionally sneaking away to make someone a tea or a coffee).

In the time since then, the shelves have filled up quite a bit — first the gifts and then the groceries — and we’re starting to get our feet under us.

Taking inspiration again from

Summer Brennan

’s writing practice of The Five Things Essay, I wanted to take a moment to share five things about what it’s been like!

1. I love working in our shop
More than anything, the takeaway is that I completely love having a store. It’s like, beyond my wildest dreams.

A few weeks after we opened, poor Haritha got a brutal chest cold and there were a couple of days he just couldn’t get out of bed. For those days, I ran the things more or less by myself, messaging him on our walkie-talkies when I was out of my depth.

Aside from feeling bad for Haritha (which I really did!), I was just in a constant state of delight the whole time. I felt like the day mostly consisted of people coming in and expressing appreciation that they could now pick up their packages in town, or complimenting our taste — either regarding the way the space looked or the items we’d chosen for the shelves.

Once Haritha was back on his feet (and I was back to work at my day job), the store became his domain again. But I still love choosing items for the gift shop. I’m also having a great time bringing my maximalist design sensibilities to creating displays like the one above, which features Plum and Posey wax seal necklaces, Briana Corr Scott’s Paper Doll collection, and candles from A Pleasant Thought.

2. I love working with local vendors!
A new friend who mercifully shares my devotion to maximalism and everyday-is-Hallowe’en aesthetics is Debbie Wamboldt, pictured above in front of a shelf of her products in our shop (with her adorable son “Beans”).

Debbie has a company called Mini’s Soaps, and she makes soap from ocean water using an ancient recipe. Not only have these soaps saved me from my usual cold weather dry skin, but she takes such a thrilling narrative-based approach to perfumery.

Like, I know there are a lot of people selling handmade soaps, but how many are creating scents like Paperback and Petrichor? (Fun fact! I used the Petrichor soap in the shower yesterday and Haritha told me I smelled like rain after!)

Debbie and I are currently collaborating on a fun rebrand of her products (which include room sprays and bath bombs and shampoo bars). And as a little Rosefinch-exclusive, we are offering a variety pack of half bars of some of her spookiest scents. We’ve only got a few left right now, so get them while you can!

3. There is so much left to do
This is actually the least stressful picture I could fin of the back part of the building, which is still very much a work in progress. I could honestly just start typing about the efforts underway to get the kitchen up to code, but I feel like I’d write myself into a panic attack.

So I’m just gonna share one of the issues we are navigating: we can find no evidence that the fire suppression system above the stoves has been tested in the last eight years¹.

As a result, this scene from The Bear Season Two is a great representation of what my our last Thursday morning felt like:

The good news is the system more or less functions okay! Which was such a relief that I nearly cried. But there is still some updating that needs to be done before we are allowed operate the kitchen — and then a bit more renovations to do before we are cleared to have seating.

Poor Haritha must get asked dozens of times a week if we are going to be a restaurant again. I know people are really eager for it, and we are too. There is nothing I want more than to be able to sit in a booth with a friend and have a tea and baked treat in my own café.

On a happier note, we continue to get a lot of positive feedback on our decision to never have alcohol in the space!

4. Offering affordable groceries is not easy
I cannot even tell you how confounding and overwhelming we are finding it to sort out how to carry basic staples in the store.

Working directly with local food supply companies is one thing (more on that below!), and we are so happy to bring in baked goods (etc) from small scale suppliers. But one of the pieces of feedback we got about the store was that people wanted to make sure they could buy just a loaf of regular old Ben’s Bread — especially if the small batch sourdough was outside their budget. So we got an account with Sobey’s Wholesale and Sysco and Costco and Wholesale Club and tried to make a plan.

Sobey’s Wholesale delivers for $40 flat rate, and invoices us a week after delivery. Wholesale Club charges $100 a pallet for delivery, and we pay when we order. Costco does not deliver to our area.

So looking at that information alone, Sobey’s is the better choice. But the prices are so crazy. Let’s look at a small box of cereal, for example:

A 430g box of Honey Nut Cheerios is $6.72 to us. The retail price for same box of cereal is currently three for $10 (so, $3.33) at Walmart.

What are we supposed to do when the wholesale price we are paying is more than three times the retail price someone is going to pay half an hour away? Like, I understand we will never be able to buy in Walmart’s volume to match their prices, but this drastic of a divide seems totally untenable.

We’re doing our best to figure it out, and honestly just selling most of our staple groceries pretty close to at cost for us. I’m sure our prices might still seem high on some items, but I promise you that we are not the ones making a profit on them!

5. It takes a village to feed a village
While large corporations remain a scourge, we have been thrilled to be able to work with local food producers directly, like That Dutchman’s Cheese Farm and Webber’s Foods. We’ve also been fortunate that Fresh Cuts — an incredible grocery store about half an hour from here — has let us get some produce directly from them as well.

We’re also so happy to offer baked goods from Five Girls Baking and Boulangerie La Vendéenne — for people to enjoy with their Java Blend Coffee or Tea Brewery Tea.

Some of these places deliver, hooray! But for the baked goods we need to be able to go pick them up a few times a week. Which left us in a really tough spot (literally) when our car spent a few weeks in the shop this week, as the dealership waited on delivery of a part.

Luckily, our lovely neighbour across the street offered us the use of her car straight away so we could keep running our food-related errands. And other people in town volunteered to pick up orders for us when we couldn’t get away from the store. And other sweet friends Dotse and Bailey at Hundu Contracting let us use their car for a day to go to Halifax for a medical appointment — where we also were able to stock up on some things at Wholesale Club (without having to pay for delivery).

Without all of those people, these last two months would have been so much harder.

They also would have been harder (and I say this in complete sincerity) without you! Everyone single person who takes the time to read this newsletter is also part of what we are trying to do here — particularly folks who buy things from our online store (where we actually have margins!). When you support us in this way, you are helping us sell basic food as cheaply as possible! We appreciate it so much.

If anyone has any questions or thoughts about how things are going here, I’d love to hear them! I leave the comments open on these posts, and I’d love to have some discussions in there! Truly ask me anything!

Thanks so much for reading.

1. Maybe it was tested and there is just … no proof anywhere? I’m happy to be corrected on this!