After 25 Years, Home-Cooked Meals And Organic Produce Define Gelson’s

Used to be if you wanted to prepare Jamaican Jerk Chicken for dinner, you’d make sure you had all your ingredients at the ready: chicken breasts, spices, onions, an orange, a lime and a nice hot habanero pepper. Making sure you had an hour to marinate the chicken meant you would start this recipe a couple of hours before you planned to sit down to eat. Today, you’d simply run over to Gelson’s and pick up a Classic Entree from the meat department. With the chicken already marinated, all you’d need to do is fire up the grill. Ready-to-go foods distinguish the Gelson’s of 2004 from the store that opened here in the Palisades 25 years ago, and will celebrate the event this Saturday. (See story, page 1.) The service deli, which amounts to between 17 and 20 percent of total store sales, offers a wide selection of hot and cold dishes for the shoppers who are not cooking. ‘More and more we are catering to the consumer who is tired of coming home and preparing a meal,’ says store manager Ray Stockton. He knows his customers pretty well, having worked at the Palisades location for the past nine years. Comparing the typical Palisades customer to others, Stockton, who has 32 years with the company at many different locations, is a committed fan. ‘Palisades customers are genuine, easy to talk to and to help. They are not trying to say ‘look at me’ because they are established, grounded.’ Between 2,000 and 3,000 customer transactions occur daily, according to Stockton, whose main challenge over the years has been accommodating their parking needs. ‘The parking lot is too small for what we need it for,’ says Stockton, adding that he understands that he shares customers with other businesses so he tries to oblige those who park in Gelson’s while they run may an errand at the cleaners or pharmacy across the street. In his tenure, Stockton has seen the store add the Wolfgang Puck Pizza Express, remodel the deli service counter and move the liquor department into a gondola (aisle, in market jargon). Its former niche was replaced with a flower shop that not only sells individual stems and potted plants, but also assembles custom arrangements, which can be seen around the store, especially at the bakery. All but one of the 18 Gelson’s markets contract with Viktor Benes Continental Bakery, which is a very popular service, especially during the holidays. Holidays put the pressure on the meat department too, according to manager Jimmy Crenshaw, who says that Gelson’s sold 4,600 turkeys last Thanksgiving. In 24 years with the company, four in the Palisades, Crenshaw has seen the meat business move to a more customer-oriented operation, with $20,000 worth of packaged meat ready to sell on a daily basis. ‘ I think customers are eating more meat than I thought, especially because it’s all natural, no hormones and grain-fed,’ says Crenshaw. Filet and prime rib are the most popular cuts. Other frequent purchases are organic chicken and fish, especially wild salmon and Chilean seabass. Even though Crenshaw’s department may seem more streamlined than 25 years ago, the trade still follows the historic guild system. There are three categories of meat cutter: the meat clerk, who waits on customers and fills special requests; the apprentice, who is learning the trade; and the journeyman, who is a professional meat cutter. Organics have also swept the produce department, which according to manager Richard Brown continues to occupy more and more display area. ‘Organic fruits and vegetables have grown in the last five to seven years and occupy their own rack as well as being identified by their red labels at other locations,’ says Brown, referring to the lettuces, broccoli, tomatoes, peaches, bananas and apples. This summer has brought a surge of interest in organic heirloom tomatoes, those odd-shaped, tasty specimens that come in colors from yellow to purple. Responding to customer wishes is what Brown and his staff of 20 specialize in. ‘We developed the diamond-shaped display stations, with the prep work done inside, instead of in the back. This way we have more personnel on the floor to help customers.’ Much of the produce these days is packaged for easy storage and to maintain freshness, Brown says. ‘In the early days, most of the fruits and vegetables were stored loosely, like bunched grapes. But, then we started getting too many lawsuits because somebody had slipped and fallen on a squashed grape, so we packed them up.’ One entire section of the produce department is dedicated to individually packed cut fruit and vegetable portions, reflecting the ease and the number of smaller households. Still, the Palisades Gelson’s is located in a bedroom community, says Stockton, and is one of the chain’s top-selling markets.