The man in the stylish puffy orange coat has a much better haircut than you’d expect on an insurgent, so the advice given to him by the girl in the bandana comes across as a catchy non sequitur. “You can’t use a debit card and be a revolutionary,” she says warmly.
The man smiles and leaves a cash tip, in accordance with the counterperson’s pointer. But he may have been planning to do so, anyway. He takes his to-go order and heads out, leaving the young woman to attend to the next customer at the Garden Cafe in Rhinebeck Health Foods.
However funny ha-ha the mix-and-match aspect of the scenario—an urbane and soap-opera-handsome man being waited on by a bohemian woman dispensing radical epigrams and carrot-orange smoothies—may be, it’s not funny odd. It’s just part of the appeal of Rhinebeck Health Foods—and Rhinebeck, generally. According to proprietress Lynn Forman, it’s exactly this kind of exchange that keeps her interested in the business after more than 30 years.
“I think about retiring,” Forman says. “But I’d miss the interaction. The diversity in Rhinebeck makes it so much fun: It’s a show.”
So, the conversation at the counter is merely part and parcel of everyday goings-on: A young woman with a bright glint of diamond nose ring cleans the windows of the front door, briefly making way for a middle-aged woman in exercise tights carrying a purple yoga mat and a Nalgene bottle; two teens mill in the produce section discussing the events of the past weekend and examining the organic lettuce; a fleece-vested man pushing an empty stroller playfully asks his toddler if the hardcover cookbook the boy has pulled from the shelves is really the one he wants; and a writer stops his eyeballing and eavesdropping long enough to be excited to find a nutritional supplement in stock, after failing to find it in several chain drug stores.
It’s a bright and bustling 3,000-square-foot space tucked down Garden Street. (Forman describes it as “slightly off the beaten path,” though it’s only a seconds-long walk off Market Street.) Forman bought Rhinebeck Health Foods back in 1978—from a friend of her husband’s who was, and still is, a “skydiving, adventurous sort who didn’t want to be in store all day”—moving it to its current location in 1990. Though the store was at that time only one of five businesses in the building, Forman has been able, over the years, to acquire those spaces “little by little, in hopscotch jumps,” now occupying the entire structure. She’s put the space to good use. The store features a full produce section, bulk and frozen foods, books and gifts, and the aforementioned cafe and well-stocked supplement selection.
The clientele, according to Forman, draws from each of Rhinebeck’s resident, quasi-resident, and transient populations. “We’ve got a really great source of customers: local, weekenders, and tourists. They’re all so supportive.” Forman expresses appreciation for all her varied shoppers (with the exception of the “cell-phone shoppers,” but, hey, you take the bad with the good).
A Hyde Park native herself, Forman has watched Rhinebeck evolve and, while she’s seen some mistakes made by individual business owners who think Rhinebeck is an unqualified gold mine—”I’ve seen businesses come and go. It’s a revolving door now, more than ever. I feel I can look at a store and instantly know: ‘Oh, yeah. That’ll go.’”—she praises the core businesses and community. Forman says Rhinebeck’s Chamber of Commerce, especially, has fought hard—and fought smart—to preserve the qualities that make it a special place.
“I’m not really a meeting person, myself,” she says. “But they all work very hard together and they’re very strong in their feeling of history. They do a great job of preservation, while allowing for growth.”
Contrasting it with her own hometown, which let its four-corners area be developed out of existence, Forman praises Rhinebeck’s vision and vigilance: “It’s easy to let it go. It’s like raising a kid—you’ve got to persevere. You’ve got to keep at it to keep it the beautiful town that it is. It’s like a walk back in history.”
Special Care
Another of Rhinebeck’s veteran retailers, Lila Pague, backs up Forman’s contention that Rhinebeck is the beneficiary of a special kind of care. With business partners, Pague brought Winter Sun Summer Moon’s collection of clothing and gifts inspired by Ecuadorean and other indigenous, exotic cultures from Key West to Rhinebeck. She says that she had always known that Rhinebeck was the place for her—right down to the storefront.
“I knew that I wanted to do a store in Rhinebeck, and I knew what space.” The specificity of Pague’s goal was fortunate: When she contacted the landlord 22 years ago to notify him of her standing desire, she discovered that the slated tenant was backing out. One could look at this as a “meant to be,” and perhaps it was; but it’s also a testament to the type of perseverance referred to by Forman and of the connection and investment Rhinebeck has inspired in many.
“I fell in love with the community of Rhinebeck,” says Pague, stressing the word “community” pointedly. “The sense of caring, the wanting to maintain a particular quality of life.”
The preservationist instinct can be a stubbornly conservative one, but Pague elaborates, indicating that the Rhinebeck variety is a flexible and open strain: “I’ve met so many people here, through the store, that I would not normally meet. We may not have the same interests or be the same politically but, even so, there’s a real sense of people caring across those differences, of volunteering and participating.”
Importantly, she points out, there is a continuum of care. “Rhinebeck has benefited from people who were here 40 or 50 years ago, who had vision, and that’s being passed on to the children of the community.”
Pague recalls two teenage girls whom she overheard during Rhinebeck’s Dutch-inspired, town-wide holiday festival, Sinterklass: “One girl just gasped to the other, ‘Omigod, I’ve never seen my town look like this!’” That girl owns Rhinebeck now; in that moment it became her community.”
The sense of ownership is contagious. Natives, such as the girls observed by Pague, feel it; but so, too, do the transplants, whether of long standing, like Pague, or the more recent. And Pague, like Forman, thinks the arrival of newcomers is a boon. “Personally, I’m thrilled at the influx, the diversity. The people who have come have embraced the community. They’re passionate about keeping Rhinebeck a special place.”
Mentoring the Next Generation
It’d be easy to view Samuel’s of Rhinebeck as a monument to the community’s incorporation of the old and young—literally, or represented symbolically in the form of Rhinebeck’s natives and newcomers—and to its blend of tradition and diversity. The modestly sized store is styled as a penny-candy store from the early portion of the last century. On closer examination, the themed Beatles and Wizard of Oz novelty mugs, not to mention the mouthwatering hiss of the cappuccino machine, would clue in even the laziest of history students that this isn’t purely a period piece. But owner Ira Gutner has accomplished what he set out to do, which was to provide the young people of Rhinebeck with the experience similar to the one he had as young person himself.
The New York City-born, Westchester-raised Gutner recalls his Uncle Sam, for whom the store is named. “I have fond memories of meeting him at a place called Pot Roast Sadie’s under the el. It had this great wall of penny candy. I wanted to have a place like that, one that would bring out the kids—and the kid in all of us.”
Rhinebeck was for Gutner an optimal location, both for economic exigencies—“Supply and demand,” he says. “When I came here in 1993, Rhinebeck didn’t have anything like this”—and for more personal reasons. Gutner says he had grown tired of working fashion and home furnishings in the city and of the “scene in the Hamptons,” and wanted to make a lifestyle change and also to make a contribution.
It is clear in talking to Gutner that his sense of community is an active and participatory one. He is strident in his statements that Samuel’s is of and for Rhinebeck, particularly the young. “I’ve always hired the youth of Rhinebeck, and have probably mentored more than 100. One of them is my manager now—I trust him with my life. Here, a young adult is treated like a young adult, not a kid.”
That level of respect seems to have paid off in enthusiastic attachment. Amid the candy, the decorative coffee paraphernalia, and the fliers for local arts and wellness events, there’s a number of tributes to Gutner obviously produced by young fans. Drawings, poems, and other testimonials offer affectionate accolades and gratitude for the services and environment Gutner has created. Standing at the coffee bar perusing the praise, one wonders if the 10-or-so-year-old typing away at his laptop while seated at the front window is working on a similar thank-you.
(It should be noted that the work on display isn’t limited to that of precocious amateurs. There is a charming likeness of Gutner himself on the wall, produced by a local adult painter as part of a series called “The Village People” and purchased for Gutner by community members. There are also several framed cartoons depicting Samuel’s by Rhinebeck resident Daniel Shannahan, including one that graced the cover of a 2004 edition of The New Yorker.)
Samuel’s has a noticeable eclecticism, but it coheres. To hear Gutner describe it, that’s only appropriate. It reiterates the dynamic of Rhinebeck as a whole. For example, for all his emphasis on local community, Gutner says he’s not talking about exclusion.
“I have a philosophy: We cater to local people. Now we have a group who have weekend homes here. Those are weekend locals. We have people who come to visit, those are the visiting locals.”
Such an extension of hospitality is, on the one hand, no doubt, good business sense; but it’s also a return on the hospitality Gutner himself has received. “There are a lot of transplants here, but there’s an older group as well. It’s a mix. But the old-timers have gotten acclimated. They know how it helps them. The new businesses improve business for everybody, it improves the tax base and the schools—as a whole community, it meshes well.”
As if to punch home the point, Gutner says, “Look, I’m a gay Jewish man and I’m here for 16 years. I had a line out the door my first day. I didn’t come in here as a pushy New Yorker trying to make a fast buck.”
As with the other longtime merchants, Gutner espouses a kind of “respect in, respect out” mantra. Those—however inclined, however eccentric—who recognize and respect those qualities that make Rhinebeck, Rhinebeck are accommodated, embraced, and incorporated into…well, it all comes back to that phrase: “It’s a question of quality of life,” he says. “Rhinebeck is one of the most beautiful places in the world. Even though if you told me in my 20s that I wouldn’t be living in the city off Chinese take-out, I wouldn’t have believed it. Here, I feel like I’m part of a community.”
RESOURCES
Enjoy Rhinebeck www.enjoyrhinebeck.com
Rhinebeck Area Chamber of Commerce www.rhinebeckchamber.com
Rhinecliff Health Foods www.rhinebeckhealthfoods.com
Samuel’s (845) 876-5312
Sinterklaas www.sinterklaasrhinebeck.blogspot.com
Town of Rhinebeck www.rhinebeck-ny.gov
Winter Sun Summer Moon www.wintersunsummermoon.com
This article appears in May 2010.
