Anyone who’s ever opened a small business can relate to Eileen Dove’s situation on this particular morning.
She’s on her knees on the floor unpacking items with one hand, while the other hand holds a telephone connected to a cash register parts supplier in the Midwest. She’s on hold, listening to canned music as she works, even though she can work with only one hand until a human picks up the phone and takes her order for the machine part.
With both hands occupied, Dove nonetheless manages to answer questions and give a brief tour of her new business, Eileen’s Creative Kitchenware, which opens next week on Pioneer Way, in the space that used to house Truly Magic Toys.
The store reflects a life change for Dove, who had a secure job at the Bank of America. She’d worked for the bank for 18 years, the past six in the Oak Harbor Safeway branch, and figured she’d retire there. But one thought kept nagging at her. “I wanted to have fun in my job,” she said.
She saw her chance when the toy store went out of business, freeing a space in Oak Harbor’s Old Town. She told her husband, “The toy store is going out of business, honey. How about I open a kitchen shop?”
Laughing, she recalls her husband’s response: “What?” But she didn’t let his surprise stop her. “The next day I gave notice,” she said.
After the initial shock, Brent Dove was highly supportive of his wife’s new endeavor and he helps her as much as he can. “Brent drives truck for Frito-Lay, for the last 27 years,” she said. “But he’s got two jobs now.”
Her husband’s job helps explain why among the shop’s high-class collection of seafood cookbooks is another book titled, “A Man, A Plan, A Can,” which contains can-based recipes any man can cook up. Her favorite recipe in the book calls for the use of Fritos.
The Doves agreed that Oak Harbor residents would likely support a kitchen shop featuring high-end items that haven’t been available here. “We’ve got Wal-Mart and Kmart,” Elaine Dove said, as she motioned with her one free arm toward her fancy pots, pans and dinnerware. “But if you wanted any of these things you had to drive to Mount Vernon, Burlington or Alderwood Mall.”
The store was only partly stocked Wednesday, but the idea was plain. There were boxes of Oxo kitchen gadgets waiting to be put on display, shelves filled with Cuisinart, Waring, Krupps and Chef’s Choice products, titanium-and-ceramic Scanpans hanging in the air and hand-painted plates sitting prettily near sparkling stemware.
Preparing the space to house upscale kitchen products hasn’t been easy. Dove shudders as she recalls the black-painted walls of the old toy store, and how it took three coats of white paint covered by three coats of the reddish hue she prefers to hide all traces of the black.
Dove didn’t know much about starting a business, but she received a lot of help from friends and suppliers. “This has been a learning experience,” she said, still hoping to learn when her cash register part would arrive — if someone would just pick up the phone.
