By Brooklyn – Owner Gaia Hosts All Things Brooklyn Born

By Brooklyn in Carroll Gardens

 By Brooklyn

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Community is a word that Gaia, owner of By Brooklyn in Carroll Gardens, and I shared a lot during our interview in her beautiful store last week.  Filled with food, jewelry, candles, pillows, t-shirts, books and more, everything in the store is made in NYC’s largest borough.

Stepping off the F train’s Carroll Gardens stop, you find yourself in a microcosm of Brooklyn that once again reminds you just how cool the borough is, and how unique its varying communities.  Carroll Gardens is, itself, a melting pot of energies from other areas in BK: It’s got the hipsters of Williamsburg, the families of Park Slope, the hodge-podge of Brooklyn Heights.  But more than those other neighborhoods, it has an insular, artistic vibe with considerably less edge: the kind of strip where you expect to see brunchers noshing down on healthfully prepared food alongside dark coffee and hearty cocktails on weekends, and parents with Bjorn’s and Maclaren strollers shuffling to nearby Carroll Park.  While there you may see a free impromptu Shakespeare performance by Smith Street Stage.  Or just listen to the strumming of a guitar.  It’s a chill, familial neighborhood.

Which is why By Brooklyn has subtly joined other small and locally owned restaurants and stores on Smith Street and has welcomed much success.  The key?  Community.

Chocolates and Syrup from By Brooklyn

You left the corporate world in 2009 and opened By Brooklyn in April of 2011.  What motivated you to open your own local artisanal food store during this rocky financial climate?

It wasn’t that I intended on opening my own business when I left the corporate world in 2009.  It was more the need to leave the corporate world to figure out what it was and what I wanted to do… When I first moved to NYC my plan was to go to culinary school … but for a variety of reasons that didn’t happen. But it’s always been a passion of mine, I’ve always loved food, I’ve always been super into exploring new foods and the new food scene so I figured why don’t I go back to that?  But what does that mean? So I ended up going to the Institute for Culinary Education for their restaurant management program.  I knew that I didn’t want to actually cook.  I like to cook personally but I don’t want to cook as a career so I figured the restaurant management program would be a good place to start.  And I had no idea what was going to come out of that.  The first day I thought “maybe I will open a restaurant after this”.  But through the process of being in that program I was able to really appreciate where my talents are and where my skill set lies.  And I knew primarily because of cost that a restaurant wasn’t going to be feasible – it’s incredibly expensive to open a restaurant in NYC.  And it’s not what I wanted to do.

So when you were pondering what kind of store you’d be what items did you figure out would be lucrative when you were coming up with your model.

Well, two things. One, I knew that the food items would be a big draw and would be lucrative in terms of the volume turnover that I would have. But then I knew in terms of margin – percentage wise – I’d do really well with the more with tangible items whether it be jewelry or t-shirts or crafted goods.  And it’s still something I’m figuring out. You know, it was easy and fun to kinda guess what was gonna work and now I have the reality of what is working.  So it’s part of the process.

Did you find any hindrances or unexpected pleasant surprises when you were putting together your store?

The unexpected surprises were just how excited people were and how willing they were to help out, whether that meant physically helping out in the store doing some of the minor renovations that I had to do or the vendors who I met that were willing to work with me… it is a lot of money to setup a store so they would work with me on term: half up front half at thirty.  That cooperation I was surprised by.

And people locally even did your floors and ceilings, the crates on the walls right?

Everything floor to ceiling, wall to wall, is all local.  The crates on the wall are all from local shops in Brooklyn. The floors are done by Verazano flooring, which is a local flooring company. The contractors are all based in BK. My architect is based here; he just lives around the corner. When I needed to put in an AC I went to the local hardware store and they gave me this great guy. But that’s what a community is about, it’s about word of mouth, getting the best quality of what you can get… I just wanted to stay true to what this is which is By Brooklyn.  I’m the only thing in this store not from Brooklyn.

So why By Brooklyn then.  What got you here?

Well I knew I wanted to do something that was somehow connected to local food, and the local resurgence in focusing on local business and supporting the local economy which was the exact opposite of what I was doing in the corporate world. It wasn’t like there was a conscious decision being made… it really was an organic process that evolved through kind of a whim of “why can’t I find honey made in my neighborhood?” to “well why can’t I find all of this stuff I like in my neighborhood?”  It just kept evolving.

What attracted you to this part of Smith Street and how has the neighborhood been since you opened? How have you been received?

I’ve been in this neighborhood for more than ten years.  I’ve watched the evolution of it as it’s grown and changed.  And Smith Street just made sense for a number of reasons including who else is on the street and who the street is being supported by.  I need a community that has the financial support to afford this endeavor. Because you’re not going to get the best deal here, that’s not what this store is about.  And the convenience – I live four blocks away, and I know most of the businesses on this street.

So now down to all the beautiful things in this store.  How did you find these people?

To start off with I already knew a number of people or I was familiar with a number of product lines… either just because I knew them and was good friends with them already or having seen products lines at the Brooklyn Flea or local crafts fairs.  I have a lot of friends who are really creative so there’s a whole network there of people that I was able to tap into both for their specific whatever it is they make but as well as recommendations for who else to go to. Oh, I also did a lot of searching Etsy.  Etsty, Etsy, Etsy.  But since then it’s more been about people finding me, people coming to me, I have an application on my website for vendors to fill out, people come into the store on almost a daily basis. So now the only time I’m actively looking for someone is if there’s something in particular I feel like I’m missing in the store that I want to start carrying.  And then I’ll search it out that way. But again I’ll turn to my vendors: “do you know anyone who does this because this is what I’m missing, this is the hole I have to fill”.  9 times out of 10 they know someone.  Again it’s part of the community.

If you had to pick a favorite item in the store that specifically represented Brooklyn artisanship, what would that be?

The pint glasses.  They’re made by Adam Suerte.  He’s born and bred south Brooklyn artist, he started back in the day as a graffiti artist.  Now he’s a fine artist, a tattoo artist, a comic book artist, and he’s doing merchandise as well.  So he to me is one the kind of iconic, classic, “this is what the creativity of Brooklyn is about”.

What would you put in the ultimate gift basket for the holidays?

The first thing that I’d grab is on Off The Map tote bags… they just capture Brooklyn, you can see what Brooklyn is, the size of the borough, all the different neighborhoods.  So I think it gives you a fair representation of what Brooklyn is.

Then after that I would put in food of course because that’s a necessary… people like consumables.. you have to have that in every gift.  So of course I would put in the sea salt caramels.  Oatmeal chunk cookies, chocolate chunk cookies.  I would include pickles from Brooklyn Brine and Ginger Syrup from Morris Kitchen.  Cause that stuff is… [‘it is crazy’ gesture].  We’re going to just start calling it Brooklyn Crack.  I was out of it for the weekend, and I had so many people coming in looking for it and I was like “I’m sorry!” and they were like “No, Ahhh!”.  It’s the highest selling item in the store by far, it blows everything else out of the water.  And also because I love it so, you know, you sell what you love.

Then I would also probably put in a pint glass or two from Adam Suerte.  I’d throw in either the New Brooklyn Cookbook or the Food Lover’s Guide to Brooklyn by Sherry Eisenberg.  I’d throw in a candle from Brooklyn Flavors.  And soap.

If someone ran in here to quickly get a host or housewarming gift and only wanted to spend $20, what would you guide them to?

I would probably do candles and soaps.  Housewarming though I always think of food.

So what are you looking to do to expand now?

I’m working on launching my online store. So that’s in the works… Because a lot of people have requested it and there’s a lot of people I know that once they see that it’s available will want it.  I’ve been very fortunate in that I’ve had incredible press coverage and part of that coverage is people calling from other places in the country asking for items, and I am more than happy to make phone sales but it’s better when people actually see it.

And beyond that I do see there’s a future for other locations, maybe pop-up shops especially for the holidays, seasonally, summer pop-ups in some places.

My vision goes on and on and on and what I would like to do with this is not just what you see here.  I want this to be a place that really like is a sector, a community vibe. People ask me all the time for help: finding a commercial kitchen they can make their product in or do you know someone that can help me with printing a certain print; where can I get my shirts silkscreen printed. That’s what I want this to be: I want this to be a resource center for all of the people who are making things.

I expect to someday have a graduation wall where someone is so big that they’re no longer able to make their product in Brooklyn.  It will be great for them and sad in some sense because I won’t sell it anymore because it won’t be able to be made in Brooklyn anymore.  But that will make room for someone else.  I see it as a whole cycle as a process, watching people grow up and learn, and learn from each other, and I get to be a part of it.