Barrel & Baskit finds reasons for fun
There are many reasons why businesses host fun events. For Beth Richards, the goal is to integrate her business, Barrel & Baskit in Hopkinton, into the culture of her town.
“It’s really about community here,” Richards said. “[Our events] are not add-on kinds of things; they are a basic foundation of the place. I mean, I’m probably not going to do goat yoga, but I have done yoga in the store. Sometimes the idea for an event comes from the community and the customers. Several folks wanted to do live music in here and were asking me about that for a while.and that’s how we created Community and Chords. They’re actually customers who come in or live in town and are very local, who play music here. And then we’ll have a tasting with that — a wine tasting or a beer tasting or a non-alcoholic tasting. Maybe we’ll serve some of our sourdough bread or we’ll bring out our soups for folks to taste.”
Sometimes Richards holds events to showcase a new product.
“We have a new farm nearby, Southern Charm farm, and they’re making their own cheeses, they’re making their own butters that we’re carrying,” she said. “And so April 26 is National Camembert Day, so they’ll be here and we’re going to have their items for a nut and a wine tasting on that Saturday.”
Richards said she looks for activities that she likes personally, and builds events around them.
“One of our wine brokers has her own gardens,” she gave as an example. “And so for the first year that we were in here, we did a wine and flower bar because we had beautiful wine and flowers. For the last nine years I’ve done tipsy tree making with boxwood trees at the holidays. That is an annual thing. I think that people would freak out if I didn’t do that. I look for things — things that I like. It’s not like I really want to host a Greek festival or something. These are things the community actually wants to do.”
Another tie to the community is Barrel & Baskit’s membership program, which lets customers run a tab.
“We brought back the tab for nostalgia,” Richards said. “It’s a benefit of membership to be able to have a tab. So you can let your kids ride a bike down and put their ice cream on the family tab.”
“In addition to that,” Richards continued, “a customer came and said, ‘Hey, do you know the Boards & Brews place down in Manchester? I would love that for my kids around here. Would you ever consider that? For my family, I would be a member if you had something like that.’ Now, we have a really great board game collection. People have asked us to be doing pizzas while they’re gaming, and so we started that. It’s a benefit of membership. You can come in once a month, get into my awesome stash of games and then do that, play games on Friday night, and we’ll stay open a little bit later. So again, it’s really super driven by community.”
From the beginning, one of Richards’ goals has been to use Barrel & Baskit to create a sense of tradition.
“My heritage is Pennsylvania Dutch,” she said. “And so my mom, if you bought a new house, would always have gifts for you: you’d have the salt, you’d have the bread, you’d have the wine. I’ve done that several times for customers here. And someone told someone and said, ‘You can come in and get Beth’s little thing.’ And so we’re creating that product for someone for a housewarming gift — a little town welcome”
Barrel & Baskit
377 Main St., Hopkinton, 746-1375, barrelandbaskit.com
Celebrating National Camembert Day with a wine and cheese tasting on Saturday, April 26, from 3 to 5 p.m.
Featured photo: Barrel & Baskit. Photo by John Fladd.