[Link below.] Pomegranate, a unique gourmet kosher supermarket in Brooklyn, N.Y., is celebrating its first birthday today with special events, promotions, gifts, tastings and a grand-prize giveaway. The festivities kicked off Sunday, Aug. 16, and culminate tonight, marking the anniversary of the day the store first opened its doors to the public in 2008.
During the four-day party, shoppers have been automatically entered to win a $500 gourmet shopping spree redeemable at Pomegranate. Today, the first 1,000 customers are being entered to receive a free gift worth $10. Additionally, any customer who shares the same birthday with Pomegranate will get a $100 Pomegranate gift certificate. A grand prize of two round-trip tickets to Israel and a Weber barbecue grill will be awarded tonight.
Mayer Gold, Pomegranate’s general manager, says that Pomegranate prepares an estimated 35 percent of its offerings on premises daily in its upstairs kitchens, with all products made from “top-quality, all-natural ingredients, with no fillers or preservatives,” and sold under the Pomegranate house brand.
What first grabs a visitor’s attention upon entering the store is a bakery section divided into grab-and-go and full-service areas. Dairy and pareve cakes in sizes ranging from miniature to large reflect the varying needs of the surrounding community, where bigger families are commonplace. “You have a big family, you have company coming over, you want a snack – we have everything over here,” observes Gold
Beyond the bakery is a sushi section staffed by accomplished sushi chefs who regularly prepare 20 to 30 rolls in-house, as well as custom orders.
Next comes the deli, which Gold describes as having “the biggest deli showcase in any kosher supermarket, period.”
“We spent a year planning the store before we opened it up,” recounts Gold. “We’ve been everywhere, from the Whole Foods flagship store in Austin, Texas, to northern California and Florida – anywhere that had a supermarket worth seeing, we saw.”
A particularly eye-catching feature of the deli is a capacious cheese section. “We set out to create the biggest kosher cheese section [in terms of] variety,” observes Gold. “We import our own Dutch cheeses. We send people out all over Italy to find different things no one else has. Plus, many cheeses we produce in-house. Cheese blends, our own flavorings and seasonings: Boursin pepper cheese, sliced cheeses, Peppadew sun-dried tomato, onion garlic – all produced in-house.”
There’s also an “olive bar, bar none,” as Gold punningly refers to it, offering product sourced from Greece and Morocco, among other far-flung places.
One particularly intriguing aspect of Pomegranate is how the store got its name. “Everybody’s asking that question,” chuckles owner Abraham Banda, who adds that he wanted a name that would be “exciting, something that people would be able to relate to.”
The main reason he went with “Pomegranate,” however, is because of the fruit’s uniqueness. “Every fruit has six or seven varieties – [like] oranges or apples – [but] the pomegranate has only one,” explains Banda, who purchased an existing 10,000- or 11,000-square-foot grocery market on the site, with the intention of razing it and building a new one, and then bought out the mechanic next door – a project that resulted in the current store and adjacent parking lot. “With a pomegranate, you know right away what it is. There’s only one kind.”
Pomegranate’s birthday celebration live webcast will take place tonight, from 8 to 10 p.m., and will feature an exciting show with many entertainers. Click here to watch.
{By Elisha Ferber-Matzav.com Newscenter}
