Store Opening: KitchenWares on Newbury

By Aviva Shen

“We love this stuff!” says Jim Hill, framed by a huge wall of knives. “Everywhere we’ve gone — for years, on vacations, trips — we’ve always visited kitchen stores.”

Now he and wife Jennifer Hill of Blackstone’s of Beacon Hill own KitchenWares, the mom-and-pop kitchen store on Newbury Street. (KitchenWares has replaced KitchenArts, which recently closed after 30 years.) In addition to over one hundred cookie-cutters and the only knife-sharpening service in town, they will be adding in-store kitchen demos to their repertoire come autumn.

KitchenWares has some of the same practical inventory as KitchenArts, and they also stock as many New England and American-made products as they can find. Brands include Boston-based Preserve Plastics, centuries-old Lodge Cast-Iron Cookware in Tennessee, and Lampson Sharp knives from Shelburne, MA. “We get a lot of tourists from Europe and Asia who come in looking for gadgets they can’t get at home,” says Jim.
And then there’s the quirky stuff. Serving escargot? They have a plate for that. Need a molcajete? (You know, that Mexican lava-stone tool used to make guacamole and salsa…) They have that, too.

McKenna Hill, daughter of Jim and Jennifer and Store Manager, explains, “We want to be the kind of store where, you know, we may only sell one or two of that item a year, but when that one person comes in and sees it, we want them to remember us as the one place that had that special thing.”

Find out how to use a molcajete (or a fillet knife, or a food processor) this fall at one of their in-store kitchen demos. In the meantime, take a tour inside the store here.

KitchenWares by Blackstones, 215 Newbury St., Boston, 857-366-4237, kitchenwaresboston.com.