It once was Ruby's and it's still a gem
-- a column from Ted Potrikus
Dan Sullivan – the Town of Richfield Supervisor and co-founder of the Richfield Springs Community Food Cooperative – invited me out last week for a tour of the store on the village’s West Main Street. I had been there only a few minutes talking with Kari James, the store’s full-time manager, when the proprietors of B. Blossom Catering came in with the morning delivery of vegan lunch plates to sell there that day. I knew right away what I was buying for lunch – a kale salad topped with jerk-flavored roasted tofu.
Dan and Kari looked at the dozen-or-so containers. “Hang on,” Dan said. “Let me count these. I’ve already had a lot of calls this morning to have one set aside.”
Fortunately for my lunch plans, not all of them had been spoken for. And Dan kept getting calls. Some for Town business (a surprise visit that afternoon from Rep. Antonio Delgado’s staff) and some for the Co-op. Customers, too – Co-op members get a 10 percent discount on their freshly-made coffee and plenty of them stopped in that morning for a cup and to say hello to Dan and Kari. And Dan peeked in an adjoining room to greet a half-dozen villagers who meet there each Monday for a game of mahjong.
They really weren’t interruptions at all – I had the chance to check out the locally-sourced, locally-grown, locally-made, and/or locally-packaged food and home goods. And the coffee – Dan gets it
