Today we’d like to introduce you to Debra Stark.
Debra, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I was born into a family that ate organic and natural only. I remember 50# bags of wheat berries arriving in our home in Florida, shipped across the country so my mom could grind them herself and make her own seed bread. When the family dentist begged my mom for two loaves of the bread and offered her $40 per loaf (this was back in the 1950’s), my interest in food took a serious turn!
In fact, I was always convinced that if only people ate real food, ate better, a lot of our health woes would go away and the health care costs in this country would plummet. And I loved the thought of people sitting around a table and sharing meals together — that would cure some of our social ills.
Debra’s Natural Gourmet opened in 1989, and it was only some years later that I learned the people in town had been placing bets on how long our store could last. No one believed there was a need for natural and organic, and people thought of the store as Birkenstocks and hairy legs!
Today our home-town soup-to-nuts natural product store is beloved by locals and people from around the country. We’ve been named best natural product store in the country, won awards for community engagement and recognized as a top women-led business. Yankee Magazine’s readers selected Debra’s take-out kitchen as a “Best of New England — Readers’ Choice” winner, and Inc Magazine named Debra’s as a hometown powerhouse.
While all this makes the store staff and customers proud, it doesn’t measure heart and soul! It doesn’t measure how hard we all work together to create community through food, and that means our staff, our customers, our farmers and food providers.
Today there are 52 people who work hard at Debra’s. Among the writers, musicians, a nurse, and cancer survivors. We share interests such as organic gardening, bee-keeping, and holistic education. We keep learning and growing, and our main problem is wondering how the heck we can fit any more into our space!
Has it been a smooth road?
Smooth road? You gotta be kidding! In retail? In life? If it’s not the shelves collapsing or the refrigerators and freezers going down, it’s a customer who requests Dragon’s Blood (an herb) and then worries that we might be endangering dragons or another customer who insists that organic lettuce be only local in January when there is snow on the ground.
Or the bottle of cod liver oil that was dropped so the oil ran under the permanently installed shelves and smelled for days. Or the various 1001 things that happen to our staff and customers that make for a bumpy ride in the store.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
We’re a natural products retailer. We carry everything from organic produce to grass-fed meats and dairy products to lipsticks, shampoos and essential oils. We carry candles, books, have a strong dietary supplement department, a killer take-out kitchen, cater (and get rave reviews).
We’re often the first store to bring in new and exciting products (let us tell you about camel milk — no we no longer carry that). We’re known for our adventurous spirit, our innovation, for our product and ingredient standards. We’re set apart by our dedication, our enthusiasm and our love of natural products.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Our city is Concord, MA, but we’re on the “wrong side” of town. We opened there originally because we could afford the rent. We love West Concord and recommend it, but it’s hard to find space, and we’re finding it hard to find enough (more) space!
I do think town government is stretched thin, but in a perfect world, I’d like towns to have the resources to work collaboratively with businesses, to find practical solutions to perplexing problems.
Contact Info:
- Address: 98 Commonwealth Avenue, Concord, MA 01742
- Website: www.debrasnaturalgourmet.com
- Phone: 978-371-7573
- Email: debra@debrasnaturalgourmet.com
Getting in touch: BostonVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
