Special to the Times
Some think of April 1 as a day for jokes and pranks, but at Blackstone’s and KitchenWares, they recognize it as their stores’ anniversaries.
“April 1, 2006, marked our official start as the third owners of Blackstone’s,” says Jennifer Hill, who originally purchased the store together with her former business partner, Mark Duffield. Fast forward four years and the adventurous Hill, together with her husband Jim, took over the former KitchenArts space at 215 Newbury St., renaming it “KitchenWares by Blackstones.”
Since then life has been anything but dull for the Hills who embarked on a store merger in March 2020 when they made the decision to bring KitchenWares into the Blackstone’s store on The Hill.
By total coincidence, the remodeling began the same week Boston closed nearly all retail stores. Closeted in by the pandemic, work went ahead and the renewed store took shape behind papered-over windows.
Without a pandemic this was expected to be a difficult feat on a tight schedule. But, well, 2020 happened; we all know that story. We all lived that story. Without fanfare, and with a strict capacity limit, the new combined store opened on June 9.
With a year of lessons learned, pandemic challenges met head on as well as adjusting to much more inventory in less space, the Hills want to show their appreciation to the community and offer some assistance to those directly impacted by the Covid restrictions. “Our core business is kitchen and home so we felt what better way to show our support than to help those organizations that help those with food insecurity as well as the local restaurants who have struggled greatly this past year,” says Hill. “For the entire month of April we will be donating 5 percent of our sales to these three local organizations; the Restaurant Strong Fund in Boston, Food for Free – a Cambridge based non-profit, and the greater Boston branch of Community Fridges.”
Additional donations from their customer community will also be accepted in the store and online at www.kitchenwaresboston.com.
“We are eternally grateful for the encouragement and kind support our Beacon Hill and Back Bay neighbors and friends of Blackstones and KitchenWares have shown us in tough times, Thank you”, says Hill.