For 10 years, Nikki Hayes worked in packaging design for big-name beauty brands, dreaming about how she could break into the food styling space. She reached out to every qualified food stylist she could find on LinkedIn hoping for a coffee, a contact, an in. One person finally responded, and Hayes was able to tag along on a weeklong, unpaid cookbook photoshoot. “There’s no straight path into that business,” says Hayes. “I didn’t really get into [that line of work], but it planted a seed in the back of my head. People say do what you love and it won’t feel like work. I kept saying to myself, ‘What kind of work is that? I don’t understand.’ But now I finally get it.”
In December, Hayes cracked the code when she opened Stella’s Fine Market, a gourmet provisions shop on Main Street in Beacon, a project that stitches together all the aspects of work she likes—from cooking to design, photography, and customer service. “I was ready,” Hayes says. “I was writing a business plan even before the pandemic and then when it happened and I lost my position, I was like, ‘Let’s just go full force on this.’” She searched for a storefront for a year, staying up late and waking up early to write her business plan, create mockups of the store, and research food products.
“I put together the store with just a little bit of everything I love,” Hayes says, speaking as much to the products themselves as to the nature of the work. “I do my own photoshoots, I get to be on my own set. I am creative. I can be on the computer a little bit, researching and talking to all these founders of food businesses, and then I can take pictures of those products and cook with those products. Then in the store, I’m talking to customers about how to use the products. It’s everything I love and the different aspects of my job—it just makes it so fun.” Even through the phone you can hear the voice of someone beaming with self-actualization.
The shop, named for Hayes’s four-year-old daughter (a regular in-store fixture), has the sleek, classic aesthetic of the New York City markets that the Brooklyn native grew up going to. “I know a lot of people are doing super-modern, but my aesthetic is mixing modern with vintage,” Hayes says. “I wanted people to feel like the shop’s been there for 100 years.” It’s Old New York meets a Nancy Meyers movie kitchen. Cursive gold leaf lettering in the windows achieves that historic market look, while inside, thrifted bentwood chairs and a farmhouse table make it feel like you’re right at home.
Open shelving lines the walls of the bright space, displaying the carefully selected products, the majority from women-owned businesses. “I love having these ingredients that make life easy,” Hayes says. “I’m at the store, but when I come home I have to cook dinner. I have these products that are kind of shortcuts to making a really flavorful dinner with minimal ingredients.” She points to the customer-favorite Omsom “starter” packets that combine all the sauces, aromatics, and seasonings for specific Asian dishes.
Minimal and pronounceable ingredients are a must for Hayes. She carries olive oils from Fat Gold and The Olive Oil, Fishwife tinned seafood, coffee from Canyon and Partners, Core & Rind cashew cheesy sauces, Ami Ami spice toppings, and a wide range of non-alcoholic beverages including Tost sparkling teas, Ghia botanical extracts, Acid League “wine proxies,” and Kin Euphorics. Local products include Catskill Provisions pancake mix, Tree Juice products, Immuneshein ginger elixirs, Fruition Chocolate, Phoenicia Soap Co. products, Cave Glow Studio candles, and Bjorn Qorn popcorn.
Hayes sees the shop shelves and her Instagram page as a living portfolio. “I don’t choose products specifically for the packaging, even though that is my background,” she says. “But all of these small businesses take pride in their packaging and know how important it is. So it happens to work out that they are all really beautiful.” The store also stocks a selection of new and thrifted cookbooks, some glassware, cutting boards, and market baskets.
For Hayes, who has lived upstate with her husband since 2014, having a storefront on Main Street in Beacon is a dream. “We always wanted to live in Beacon, but we couldn’t afford it,” says Hayes, who lives with her husband and daughter in a small, lakefront cottage in Putnam Valley. “We used to go to Ella’s Bellas back in the day. We’d come into Beacon for drinks and oysters. Our store is next to Kitchen Sink, which is our favorite restaurant ever. I know the chefs. They come in and shop. It’s amazing—they’re like celebrities to me.”
Hayes is in talks with local chefs to start cooking classes and tastings later this month or in May. In the future, she imagines more workshops like kitchen basics for pre-teens and creating the “ultimate charcuterie board.” “It would be awesome to bring the community together,” Hayes says. “I love having these little interactions with customers that come in. It would be nice to talk a little bit longer and have more of a conversation about cooking, being a mom, or whatever it is. Now that things are opening up again and people are vaxxed, I think it would be so fun.”
