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Date: 4/19/2021
HOLYOKE– Blue Door Gatherings has found a new way to serve the community of Holyoke while also catering to those hosting events.
Owner Laura Bowman said while the company started as and has continued to operate as a catering company, she always dreamt of ways to serve people from a space of her very own. “It was always a dream of mine to have my own space and serve people from this space in Holyoke. It’s such a beautiful space and area on the canal, I always thought it would be such a dream to have people eating from our kitchen space,” she said.
Like many other business owners, Bowman was forced to shift how she operated during the pandemic, leading her to install and open a storefront window at their location on 400 Dwight St. While she said it was always part of her dream to welcome patrons into the space, the global health crisis sped up her timeline. “The pandemic created an opportunity and excuse to do it sooner rather than wait a couple more years,” Bowman said.
Opening the window, she said, not only allowed her to achieve such a dream, but also allowed more people to have access to the food the business created. “It allows us to serve more people in more capacity in a menu that’s more accessible than planning an event for thousands of dollars,” she said.
To build and install the window, Bowman said she had to extend the business’ catering licence in addition to getting a retail license. This, she said, was “pretty standard” and “not a huge ordeal.” The difficult part of the process, Bowman explained, was acquiring a retail license to sell alcohol.
“We’re struggling to get a permit to sell retail alcohol serving cans of beer, bottles of wine,” she said.
Bowman said she and her staff “have a lot of exciting ideas and plans for the spring” surrounding the window, including pop up dinners. The dinners, she said, were something they were doing prior to the pandemic, but were forced to stop when restrictions were put in place. “It was our way of doing a little pop up restaurant a couple times a year. The pandemic happened as we were getting in the groove of doing more,” she said. “The window is going to offer an opportunity for us to do outdoor supper clubs and dinners. We might partner with some local breweries and a local butcher shop to do a pop up sandwich night.”
In addition to adding the service window, Bowman said she is also working to expand the retail side of her business, Blue Door Home. While she carries some local produce, flowers, cheeses and other retail items, she said that ultimately any product she carries in her store is from a business that she aligns with personally. “A huge part of our philosophy and business identity is to support other women and minority-owned businesses. We have smudge sticks, pens, stickers [and] jewelry made by other makers, some local, some not necessarily local, but have a philosophy that we strongly identify with,” she said.
She said while items in the market were curated by her, they “collaborate with people that work on our team because they know someone or make their own dyes or fabrics.” Blue Door Homes, she explained, gives “the creative people that work for me” a platform to sell their items. Bowman explained that one of her employees “takes our food scraps to make natural dyes and linens.”
She said ultimately she’d like people to think of the business as a one-stop shop for events such as birthdays. “I hope that items catch on and people identify our place with somewhere they can go and buy a birthday gift from,” she said. “So they can buy a cake from us, but also buy earrings, a greeting card or some pottery from us.”
Bowman said the response from the community regarding the service window has kept her busy and left people requesting the window be open more than the current three days a week. “Local support has been really overwhelming and super responsive,” she said.
She said while ideally she’d like to have the window open more days, she was currently facing a staffing issue and needed to prioritize catering events. “A lot of people asked will you expand that or how long it will last. We don’t really know. Right now, we’re sticking with 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday to Friday. We still have a very busy event schedule starting with last summer, last year events starting this year and now booking into next year,” she said. “Our event schedule hasn’t slowed down, it just transitioned into this year. The window comes secondary to that, events are our bread and butter.”
However, she said that they would keep the window “as sort of a backup for us,” in addition for it serving as “a creative way to try new menu items, [and] use seasonal ingredients that are fleeting and we wouldn’t use at an event.” She added that she would like to keep the window open. “I’d like to have it open, keep that consistency for people,” she said.
She recommended using their website, bluedoorgatherings.com, to order ahead as some popular items such as donuts or sandwiches items may sell out. Pre-ordering opens the evening prior at 5 p.m. However, Bowman said that ordering ahead wasn’t necessary and people could also utilize the window by simply walking up and ordering. For updated weekly menus and to see if a menu item has sold out, people are encouraged to visit their website or Instagram (@bluedoorgatherings).