support production runs of up to 400 skil-lets at a time. She also connected with Lodge cast iron cookware in TN, which provides seasoning for her state skillets which she began selling to restaurants, and independent kitchen stores in addition to her web store.

“A large part of its success is that it shows amazing home state pride,” Katrina Kelly, owner of The Kitchen Gallery in Madison, WI, said. The Kitchen Gallery was one of the first retail stores to carry The American Skillet Company product, and in its first year sold more than 120 pans at $125 a piece. “Customers are ex-cited by something that features Wiscon-sin and is also made in America.”

Toninato said she is proud of how her state-shaped skillets have led her journey from art to manufacturer, but she hopes to see American Skillet Company expand organically just like it started, with artists

connecting with their American roots.“I’m definitely ready for what’s next,” To-

ninato said. “My goal with The American Skillet Company is to develop a catalog that’s more than just states. I’d like to work with other designers and artists who have ideas and want to take their designs into the commercial world. I don’t see the company as being married to cast iron, but more of an American-based manu-facturing company. I’m very open to how things can change us, but I have a lot of core values and beliefs, such as quality, location and where we retail.”

Toninato is selling to independent gour-met stores and online, including through Martha Stewart’s American Made eBay Market. Her “United States of Skillets” art is now the signature artwork for the Martha Stewart eBay storefront.

“We know we have a real story and they [independent gourmet stores] can tell it,” she said.

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The American Skillet Company’s signature United States of Skillets art piece is highlighted on the Martha Stewart American Made eBay storefront page.

thing,” she said, as well as beer glasses. Fort Collins is known for its microbreweries, and many visitors buy a glass with the brewery’s logo at the store as a keepsake, Jim added.

With The Cupboard’s approximately total 10,000 square foot space and 6,500 display space, the store has the benefit of adding to and showing off its tabletop assortment, but many gourmet insiders do not have the luxury of the space. For those, Carey said, “Keep [your tabletop assortment] neat and clean. Rearrange it constantly. Stay focused. Find a few patterns that work for you and your customer and then try to do that well.”

Knowing the customer is key, he said. For example, Carey said he encouraged a store in the South to bring in Fiesta but it didn’t fare well for the store, but that store, being in the south, sold Vietri well, which The Cupboard could not sell. He said that while blue is a popular color at many stores, including Crate & Barrel, he said since The Cupboard is “over 100 miles” away from the sea, blue does not work at his Fort Collins store.

The same thing is key when presenting table displays, added Whitworth. “If it’s too over the top, it would never work for us. For Colorado, [the aesthetic is] more comfortable, more casual,” she said. Trying to pull off certain things in modern magazines would not work at The Cupboard. How-ever, with tabletop, she concluded, “It’s kind of cool how you can change things up.”

The Cupboard table displays mix casual colors, patterns continued from page 46

American Skillet Company’s state shapes create hometown flavor

The Cupboard changes its table displays frequently with eye-catching colors and patterns. Shown clockwise from top left: Fiesta, Polish Pottery and Sophie Conran for Portmeirion.

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