TL; DR:
- Ina Garten owned the Barefoot Contessa from 1978 to 1996.
- She said in 2010 that it was a “great foundation” for her current work but she “doesn’t miss it”.
- Ina Garten has no plans to ever reopen the store.
- her latest cookbook, go to dinnerdebuted on October 25.
Barefoot Contessa fans may be eager to walk through the doors of the Hamptons store of the same name, once owned by Ina Garten. As for the Food Network star herself, she doesn’t quite feel the same. Garten once said she doesn’t “miss” the daily grind of Barefoot Contessa.
Ina Garten described managing the Barefoot Contessa store as ‘extremely intense’
Now 74, Garten said morning call In 2010 her food store helped prepare her for her current business. This is her writing cookbooks and hosting her own show on the Food Network.
“I’ve loved it for almost 20 years,” she said in a phone interview. “It was a great foundation for what I’m doing now, but I don’t miss it.”
Sure enough, it was a place for Hamptonians and visitors to get a coconut cake or one of the now-famous Garten chickens. But it required a lot of behind the scenes.
“It was very intense. I worked from five in the morning until eight in the evening six days a week,” Garten said.
Garten bought the Barefoot Contessa in 1978 after leaving her job in the White House as a nuclear budget analyst. Initially, the store was 400 square feet and located in Westhampton, New York.
Garten earned $87 — before expenses — on her first day at the store. In the end, it became a success to occupy a 3,000 square foot storefront in East Hampton.
Garten ran Barefoot Contessa for nearly two decades until it sold it to two of its employees—a manager and a chef—in 1996.
Ina Garten has no plans to reopen her Barefoot Contessa store
Will Barefoot Contessa return to her roots as a specialty food store owner? The answer is no, Garten does not intend to reopen the store.
“I had a great time. Today in 2017, I had a specialty food store for nearly 20 years,” she told me today in 2017. I loved every minute of it and it really has been the basis of my cookbooks now. But I think that was then and this is now. I love writing cookbooks.”
After Garten sold the store, it remained open until 2003 when the doors were permanently closed. At the time, Garten had already become a successful cookbook author after he released three cookbooks for Barefoot Contessa.
For fans who want to go to the Barefoot Contessa by Garten, look at Nancy Meyers’ Something has to be given. The market in the 2003 romantic comedy is based on the Garten Store.
Ina Garten’s “Go-To Dinners” cookbook hits shelves October 25
Another Barefoot Contessa cookbook is on the way. Garten’s latest title, no. 13 in her cookbook collection, release date October 25.
Inspired by the lockdown during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, it’s “a collection of easy, pre-made, freeze-forward, simply assembled recipes that you’ll want to make over and over again.”
In addition, the second season of Garten be my guest The series is in progress.
RELATED: Ina Garten still knows how to do the ‘first thing’ she ‘had to learn’ at her Barefoot Contessa: ‘Like riding a bike’
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