For everything European
Spain has arrived,' said an exultant if slightly sweaty Jean-Paul Gauci, emerging from a makeshift door at the rear of Euromart, his convenience store on Elgin Street. One wondered where that container of wine and food products from Spain was going to go.
Just days before Euromart had its grand opening, freshly laid tiles squelched beneath the feet, pieces of plywood and stray wires littered the floor, and shelf units and freezer cabinets peeped out from beneath their heavy-duty plastic covering.
Mr Gauci was soon rattling off everything he planned to sell at what he hopes will be the first in a chain of stores (Tin Hau and the Peak come next) - everything from German soap and Italian sauces to French cheese, Belgian beer, Dutch cigarettes, British toiletries and Portuguese ashtrays.
Euromart, which opened yesterday, seems not so much a poor man's Oliver's, a Continental-style 7-Eleven or even an unlikely corner store as a roving concept in Mr Gauci's head. 'It is an organic process,' he said. 'In three months the shelves will look quite different from how they look now.' Sourcing new products is a permanent process, and he is keen to get customer feedback.
Not that Mr Gauci lacks for ideas: among them, design-your-own Christmas and picnic hampers ('people can have anything they want with 24 hours' notice'); the Lavazza coffee machine utilising a brand new capsule system which makes for a most aromatic cup; fresh strawberries during Wimbledon (among other seasonal promotions); valet parking after 7pm; a store van for outside catering; New Age music; and aromatherapy candles. Will he also take in the laundry? 'No, but we sell washing powder,' he said with a grin.
Ideas for every day of the year aside, the core business at Euromart will undoubtedly be such items as European newspapers and magazines, jars of pesto and tapenade, pickled herring, house-made sausages, wine to suit every budget from $50 to $1,000, truffle-infused olive oil, mineral water, light bulbs, Gitanes, airmail envelopes, toothpaste, condoms and 'everything you might suddenly find you need at 11 at night'. There will also be things you might not need, but simply want, such as pheasant pate, chewing gum from Japan and board games.
The store is certain to build its own niche markets for inexpensive European products such as newspapers, a large selection of known and lesser-known beers and mineral waters, and a range of European cigarettes.
This store's establishment is an interesting development in a lively area that now boasts a quasi-Western restaurant in every second doorway, set between local street markets, traditional shops and small businesses.
Mr Gauci himself, a London-born Corsican, is credited with opening one of the first of the area's restaurants, Casa Lisboa, three years ago on Staunton Street, followed by Club Casa Nova and the Vietnamese Cafe au Lac.
When the landlord of 27-29 Elgin Street gave Mr Gauci the option of the 600-square-foot ground-floor space, he was keen but felt there were enough restaurants in the area and that the neighbourhood was losing some of its original character.
Putting in a casual store where a passer-by could make a phone call, pick up a newspaper, whack a cassoulet in the store microwave and buy a cool beer or half-bottle of wine seemed to him a way to help preserve that neighbourly feeling.
He is confident that soon everybody will be using the store, 'even the other restaurants! We have a nice cosmopolitan crowd around here and they will appreciate the store and get to know it. It is already quite easy in Hong Kong to find international produce - but not around here.' The unassuming shop front with dusty-red woodwork, blue-and-white Portuguese tiles and a simple newspaper display helps the store blend in surprisingly well with the traditional barber shop behind faded blue curtains opposite, the traditional Chinese medicine store a couple of doors down, and the narrow doorways and shopfronts up and down this atmospheric street.
True to its name, 70 per cent of Euromart's stock is European (no New World wine, for example), with the remainder of Japanese and 'local' origin.
Mr Gauci is keen to point out that the products are top-end: an exotic Portuguese pear juice, foie gras and confiture made by the French mother of his store manager.
All this shop stuff comes as naturally to Mr Gauci as the restaurant business: his grandfather ran a boulangerie in London's Soho - and the synergy between store and restaurant is something he knows he can exploit. 'The other restaurants will benefit from getting unusual products sourced for the store,' he explained.
Baguettes and pastries for the store are baked a few doors up the street in the Casa Lisboa kitchen, marinated artichokes and all kinds of salads and antipasto take-away lunches are prepared in Club Casa Nova; and finding Vietnamese delicacies packed in a picnic hamper will be a treat indeed.
Euromart, 27-29 Elgin Street, Mid-Levels, Tel: 2810-8021
