Today we’d like to introduce you to Don Koeberle.
Don, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
A graduate of UCLA, I spent the first 20 years of my professional career as an advertising agency copywriter, creating television, print and radio ads for clients ranging from Lexus and Toyota to Nestle. In 2011, however, a desire to be closer to my Palos Verdes home and to spend more time with my family along with an interest in cooking led me to first enroll in culinary school, and then to find a way to turn my food passion into a new career. I was considering a variety of options when I realized the South Bay was really missing a good, gourmet cookware’s store. When I happened upon an empty storefront in Redondo Beach’s Riviera Village, I decided to take the leap into retail and create my own vision of what a cookware’s store should be. While I had never owned my own business or even worked in a retail store environment since a few summer jobs years ago, I knew exactly what I, as an avid home cook, would want in a quality cooking store, and my years in advertising provided me with needed experience in branding and creating the exact experience I wanted to provide the neighborhood. Thus, in 2012 we opened our doors at the Catalina Cooking Store, and have been going strong ever since.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
All things considered, it’s been a pretty smooth road. I did have to learn basic retail store operations including how to order product, build an inventory, and maintain point of sale, inventory control, and accounting software, but for the most part there haven’t real hardships or struggles other than the challenges all small retail businesses face in this day and age.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
We are retail gourmet housewares storefront in Redondo Beach, in the Riviera Village shopping area. We specialize in high quality cookware and cooking tools, along with everything that goes with that, meaning cookbooks, tableware, cooking gadgets, select small appliances and any gifting items that I think would be a good fit and that our customers would find interesting. Having long suffered from wandering into cooking stores that seemed to carry a lot of gimmicky, low quality items, I made a “no crap” rule when I first started bringing in inventory. That is, I don’t want to carry anything that I wouldn’t want to use myself, nor would I ever want to carry anything that I couldn’t recommend to one of our customers. I think it’s this commitment to quality along with the pleasantness of the shopping environment itself that sets us apart.
What were you like growing up?
I was a good student, active in sports and all the usual things that growing up in a beach town like Ventura, CA entails. I wasn’t interested in cooking in the least though. That came much later.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1915 S. Catalina Ave., Redondo Beach, CA 90277 (in the Riviera Village)
- Website: www.catalinacooking.com
- Phone: (310) 378-4830
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: instagram.com/catalinacooking
- Facebook: facebook.com/catalinacookingstore
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
