Part 1: Interview
JJ Gonson
Cuisine en Locale
Meet one of the early pioneers of meal delivery and locavore-ing: JJ Gonson of Cuisine En Locale, in Somerville, MA.
By Chas Wagner
Chas: We’re sitting here on a themed taco night. However, it’s not a Tuesday. But rather, a Monday. What’s up with tacos not on a Tuesday? More like, how did Taco Mondays come to be?
JJ: Partly to be contrarian, mainly to be difficult. We just seem to keep up with anti-promotions on a daily basis. We’re coming up with bad ideas all the time.
We do tacos on a Monday, because Monday is the day we cook and pack our once-a-week meal delivery program, so, we’re here.
It actually started because we did tacos last Cinco de Mayo, which went over well. Funny enough, it was a Monday!
So, we did it again. And people liked it. Then, we just kept doing it.
It coincides that just as we are finishing with putting the program together, and as the kitchen wraps up, we open for dinner.
It stuck, because, obviously, people love tacos.
At this point, we’ve introduced one other really serious, themed night as part of the weekly rotation.
Chas: Let me guess. Turkey Thursdays because Thanksgiving was on a Thursday two years ago?
JJ: Good try. “Breakfast for Dinner Thursdays.”
Chas: What specific breakfast items. Breakfast tacos?
JJ: Nope. Blintzes. We make the cheese and the filling. We roll them. It’s lovely. We make everything here. Not a big fan of packaging.
Chas: Yeah, I love it. Even, my seltzer water was made in-house. So, describe this “putting our program together” thing and the meal delivery side of the business?
JJ: Stepping back a little. In 2005, Cuisine en Locale started as a personal chef service, which meant I went to people’s homes and cooked for them. I would cook a week’s worth of food, for a couple different people throughout the week.
Then, I started to consolidate them to make it less expensive for everyone.
No longer would I go to people’s homes, but I’d cook in our kitchen, then, deliver it to families throughout the week.
We physically no longer do our own deliveries. Metro Pedal Power, a bicycle delivery company, have been doing our deliveries for 8 years now. They handle our deliveries in Camberville and parts of Boston.
Then, we have a really nice van delivery company called Short Stop Deliver for stuff on the perimeter. You know, beyond where the trikes go.
So, the once-a-week program, meal delivery program isn’t as old as the company. You could say that started in 2007, a couple years after my personal chef service.
Now, we have between 30 and 40 families as customers now. My goal is to get it to 70. It’s taken eight years, but we feel good about where we’re headed.
Chas: Very cool. Where are most of your customers located?
JJ: Mostly Cambridge and Somerville. Many people pickup here at our kitchen in Somerville. Or a popular pickup spot is in Jamaica Plain at JP Centre Yoga. We also have a spot in Watertown at Athena Health.
Most deliveries go by bike, but the JP Centre Yoga and Athena Health deliveries, the outer points, those ones go by van. Brookline, Newton, Arlington and Lexington are a few others.
We’re great at preaching to the choir. Ya know, our core customers, but we really want to broaden our audience.
Find those people looking to supplement their farmers markets’ finds and own cooking, with some cooked/prepared food. There’s probably people in the perimeter, who would really like what we do, for a few meals per week.
Families of four or more are ideal. We’ve been investigating on how to reach out to those people. They have kids, they’re super busy and maybe they’re not in the area where we are so obvious.
Don’t get me wrong, we have a nice, solid group of customers. It’s just there’s the little bike or van, that chugs along, and people see it, they come to shows, but we’re definitely looking to expand.
Only in the last six months is when people have started to hear about this thing called meal delivery. And that’s because the New York Times finally wrote an article about it. There’s starting to be this thing.
So now, it’s time in my mind to talk about the fact that we already do it. We have the accolades and the longevity, but we haven’t really done the outreach marketing. No one really understood it, until very recently.
Chas: So, the marketing isn’t as much about education anymore. Is it simply acquiring them as a customer at this point?
JJ: Yes, the initial conversation is easier than it used to be. Like, I don’t have to say it in so many words.
One line: “we do a locavore meal delivery program.”
The word locavore and meal-delivery mean something now; that they didn’t mean even two years ago.
Chas: Meal-delivery is pretty well understood. Can you describe locavore further?
JJ: What locavore means to me is doing your best to purchase products that are not just sold by local companies, but also, produced and manufactured locally.
For example, animals that are raised locally, to cook with.
I try to find clothing that’s made locally. I have rarely succeeded. So, I at least try and shop from stores that are carrying small labels.
It means keeping your dollars in your community as best as you can for the support of your community and to grow small businesses.
In a food sense, it means purchasing food that is grown, preferably, within less than 100 miles. But sometimes, we go beyond, and then we look at the environmental impact.
There’s a couple consolidators that we work with, who bring food from Maine and Western New York. We don’t buy from California or South America. Not because we don’t respect it there, but I believe that, as food travels, it loses a huge amount of its nutrition.
Chas: Cuisine en Locale is very mission-driven. Was this deliberate from the beginning, or did it evolve into this as the company grew?
JJ: It actually started with me being furious about food and having kids. I was angry that I felt I was being deceived. The food I had to feed my family was not what it claimed to be. And at the time, I was living in Portland.
It was all about milk and artificial growth hormones. Antibiotic and prophylactic antibiotic use in cows.
My feeling is that it was not safe for my baby to be getting these harmful antibiotics.
It’s funny because if you see this baby now; he’s 6'1" and only 13 years old. Maybe it didn’t work (laughing).
I lived in Portland, Oregon for 10 years and I was working in rock and I was touring a lot. That was my background, my early career.
As I was touring, I was watching food get worse and worse on tour. Where in the late 80's, when I was touring, there were still kind of mom-and-pop places where I felt I could get fresh food.
By the time we got into the 90's, all we could go to was Wendy’s. It was gross. There was this proliferation of fast-food on the highways. It was like watching a bloom. Every time we went out, there were more of them. It was wild.
So, I was thinking a lot about how good the food was when I would finally get home to Portland. Then, when I left Portland, after being there for all of the 90's, we went to Martha’s Vineyard for a few years. That’s when my babies were little.
The Vineyard has this whole project called the Island Grown Initiative. The gist is that the island can feed itself. It was amazing and the food was incredible.
I was in this place where people were thinking deeply about food. All these moms, with little kids, in the right place at the right time.
So, I was thinking a lot about dairy, in particular. And calling the Cabots and Hoods and all these companies and trying to find small dairy.
I was able to find a local supplier and they had this little truck that used to bounce down the road and bring us glass bottles.
When I left MV, I came back to Cambridge, where I grew up, to be closer to my parents. The kids were now walking, and you know, I needed more hands.
I was sort of floating in that way that you do when you’ve left careers.
So, we floated back to Cambridge. Then, I just started cooking privately for people. Specifically, because they were the people looking for food that was not broken.
At this time, ten years ago in 2005, finding food that was locally grown, it was really hard. I mean, it’s still a full time job now. Back then, almost impossible. No farmers markets. So, I was driving to Western Mass, talking to farmers. Investigating and investigating, doing tons of homework.
I finally setup this thing with the Stillman farm, a meat-specific farm. It was called Meat Meat. Where Kate Stillman would drive to Cambridge and meet me in a parking lot. Then, I’d send an email out, in the dead of winter, and 200 people would show up. It’s because there was nowhere to get it. We’d be weighing out meat in the middle of snowstorms! The last “Meat Meet” was right before they opened the Winter Farmer’s Market.
*Meat Meet event page on Yelp in 2010
It was bittersweet. We did it for four winters and built strong bonds. We weren’t that sad; we were now indoors and had heat!
It was cool to say we buried the Meat Meet.
Chas: Wow, that shows commitment. Freezing in a parking lot, weighing out meat. That’s pretty bad-ass.
JJ: Oh, we were sooooo committed. I would buy 40 pounds of beef and pork, since I only had a few clients those first couple years.
I still work with Kate. She’s great. We won an award together and went on a trip to San Francisco a few years ago. The Good Food Award for Pickled Peaches and they were Kate’s peaches. Good fun with a good buddy.
Chas: Can you talk about being a part of the community through all your events and collaborations?
JJ: We’re all over. We like to party. We’re a little bit kitchen, a little bit rock n’ roll.
Yeah, I’m not exactly sure what we are, this super social thing that we do. We’re definitely a community of people who really enjoy being social.
Our lounge upstairs, called ONCE, the moniker is “Locally Sourced Society.”
We love encouraging people. That’s something that runs pretty consistent through the stuff. We like to make friends and meet new people and encourage people to come out and be a part of that.
Chas: Society sounds pretty exclusive. You seem like a pretty open, welcoming group, though.
JJ: Oh yes. We started with community, but it turned into society because we have food and drink. We thought that was more social than community.
But darn, this new space takes a lot of attention, like a new baby. The kitchen and meal delivery is humming.
Catering is seamless. People don’t realize we do these really high-level events. We’re actually catering the Moth Radio Hour.
Chas: No way, I love the Moth!
JJ: Yeah, on April 9th over at the Wang Hotel. We do this very punk rock, highly appointed kind of catering. We get to work with WBUR on it. They are so professional. I love working with them. They communicate beautifully. Their contracts are clear. Not the vague kind.
My favorite piece of the business is the high level catering. It’s that very detail-oriented food, where it’s from this farm and that farm. So, when people taste it they’re like, “Wow, this is amazing.”
And I’m like, “Yep, it’s all local!”
Chas: Is part of the experience telling the food and farmer’s story?
JJ: What I like to tell people is that, nothing else, just by eating our food, you are supporting local farms. 30% of every dollar is going back to a farmer. Without an in-between.
No matter what, you are always doing good work, by eating our food. We work really hard to get that message across.
The other message is that food can taste good without white sugar, without white flour, without olive oil. People don’t think it’s true, but you actually can do it.
Chas: What’s up with this pierogi night thing?
JJ: Oh yes, Pierogi Night! I’m half Polish, half Russian. The sour-cream based dumpling is deep in my blood. When we make pierogis, people go crazy. The first time, we made 500 and they sold out in an hour. It was a mob scene. So, the second time, we made 1,000 and 400 people showed up. Again, they were gone in an hour!
So, we’re making 2,000 pierogis and we’re managing it really well. Way more tables. Completely different setup. You walk up and buy them on the spot. Cafeteria style. No waiting, no muss, no fuss. We’ve learned from our pierogi mishaps.
Chas: Will this take over Monday Tacos popularity?
JJ: No, no. It’s a whole different thing. Pierogi production is a completely different animal. To produce a pierogi, one person can crank out 200 pierogis in a work day. With all the prepping and rolling. We put 5 five people on the pierogi jobs. That’s two solid work days. That’s quite an expensive pierogi. A huge commitment for us. They are big pierogis. A mouthful. We make all the sides. Apple sauce, onions and everything.
Chas: Are they specially flavored?
JJ: Potato, Sweet Potato with Cheese, Sweet with Kompot, Mushroom and Sauerkaut. Nothing ever in small measures at Cuisine en Locale. We take it to the limit. ALL. THE. TIME.
Chas: The tacos were good portions, as well. I must ask my never-ending taco debate question. Do you go with the third taco?
JJ: Yes. Always. What do ya got to lose? Nothing. The third taco is always going to be fantastic.
