| |  | SPRINGING INTO AL FRESCO SEASON
Whether you celebrated a religious holiday or enjoyed a relaxing spring break in the past week, we hope you’ve had a joyful start to our favorite season. While you’ve been away, we’ve been getting ready for the arrival of outdoor dining and parking lot parties!
Here’s a roundup of what else we’re looking forward to at Greiser’s as the air warms, the peepers chirp, and the sun sets later in our bucolic town. |  | AFTER-HOURS THIS WEDNESDAY
DISCOVER THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF EARLY EASTON with Frank Pagliaro Wednesday, April 19, 6:30 - 8:00 PM
If you were dropped off in Easton 150 years ago, what would you recognize? In the 1870s you’d find several general stores, one-room schoolhouses, shoe shops, sawmills, grist mills, tanneries, blacksmiths, taverns, and hundreds of acres of fertile farmland crisscrossed by stone walls. What has changed, what has remained the same, and what is hiding in plain sight?
We have a few seats left for April’s Local Wisdom gathering with the illustrious and entertaining local historian, and part-time Greiser’s barista, Frank Pagliaro. Frank will take us on a virtual walkabout of the Easton that was and, in some cases, still is.
$20 ticket price includes light buffet dinner and soft drinks. BYOB is welcome. Click on link or stop into the store before the event to purchase tickets. Seating is very limited, so advanced registration is required. |  | WHAT’S NEW & IMPROVED FROM OUR KITCHEN
If you’ve followed us from the beginning, you’ve seen our main man Ryan Murawski rise the ranks from stand-in latte artist on opening day (November 1, 2018) to barista manager to pandemic-curbside-pickup-packer to chef. He’s a self-taught sandwich wiz, and the most reliably cheerful 5:00 AM riser we know. We’ll do just about anything to keep him happy!
So, it was a wildly fortunate coincidence that, shortly after Ryan set a 2023 goal to level up his culinary chops, Isabel Daniels appeared at our screen door with her giant serrated chef’s knife and an immersion blender.
Isabel is a French Culinary Institute-trained chef and recipe consultant who worked most recently as department head and pastry sous chef for the stellar Union Square Hospitality Group in New York. Fourteen years ago, she was just a youngster when, competing on Team USA alongside chef Roger Gural in the 2009 Mondial du Pain in Lyon, France, she was named “best commis” at the world’s most prestigious baking competition. You’ll even find her mentioned in the book Knives at Dawn: America’s Quest for Culinary Glory at the Legendary Bocuse d’Or by Andrew Friedman.
How lucky are we? Magical people just show up here! On board since February, Isabel (aka Schmiz) is helping Ryan sharpen his skills, and teaching our whole team how to produce more tasty creations than we knew we were capable of in our tiny space.
Have you tried our new: Chocolatine, a chocolate croissant dipped in ganache and coated with cocoa powder? Croque Greisieur, a bechamel-slathered gruyere and ham croissant? Eat Your Veggies sandwich, an elegantly healthy composition of smokey roasted carrots, green pea hummus, kalamata tapenade, citrus-dill vinaigrette, microgreens, crisp lettuce, and feta cheese on a Portuguese roll? Cuban, with citrus-wine-honey braised bacon and homemade pickle mustard mayo? Country Store Club Sandwich? Cheesy Pickle Melt??!! Daily salads made with just-harvested organic Gilbertie’s greens, accompanied by a choice of homemade dressings and toppings?
Well, trust me, you must!
You might also have noticed some irresistible new homemade cookies in our bakery case.
Afternoon barista Diane Castro joined us last year after a long career at a Big 4 accounting firm. But she only recently revealed that her comfort zone is in front of a hot oven. Diane grew up working in her father’s NYC bakery and brought a few of her own great recipes to Greiser’s.
She now bakes our biscotti, our amazing peanut butter cookies (gluten free), and seasonally decorated sugar cookies — all in-house. Look for her royal icing daisy cookies for Mom in May! |  | EASTON ARTISTS: COLLECT THEM ALL!
Come before the end of April to catch our expansive exhibit of plein air paintings by Easton resident John Forgione. We’ve already sold 11 of John’s paintings – all scenes of familiar landscapes, like the one above at Longshore in Westport. Claim one for your own art collection before the exhibit changes in May!
Our next exhibit, “Discovered Light,” will share the remarkable final series of photographs captured by our friend, longtime Easton resident, and beloved Easton Arts Council member, Geri Gould, who departed this world in January.
Here’s how another distinguished Easton artist, Robert Brennan, describes Geri’s etherial images:
“Engaging in some kind of alchemy, Geri makes shapes dissolve into mystical visions, works of ambiguity, mystery, and beauty wherein the viewer is treated to a most sophisticated visual, mental, and emotional journey in which the artist simply, but not simply, shows us what she found in the most common everyday occurrence of the sun shining through the window …
Geri Gould’s gift to us is in a plain, but not so plain, symphony of shadow and light, composed over time in the finest tradition of art making: the passionate search to find beauty and meaning in the often missed light that may cast itself even across our bathroom wall.”
Kit Briner, the love of Geri’s life, will hang the show in early May and will join us in hosting an opening reception on Thursday, May 4 at 6:30 PM. Please join us in honor and memory of Geri Gould. |  | MAY IS FOR MAMA BEARS
If you still have any doubt that Easton is a community of prolific and talented creatives, stop by Greiser’s on Sunday, May 7, between 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM for our annual pre-Mother’s Day Artisans’ Popup Market.
Jeweler and pastel artist Lee Skalkos, an Easton native and mom, has curated the event and rounded up 14 other local makers of all things beautiful and useful with an eye towards celebrating the women who make it all possible. You’ll find pottery, plants, paintings, woodwork, leatherwork, glass, candles, cards, sculpture, jewelry and more for Mom. |  | SUMMER NIGHTS AT GREISER’S 2023
Our sizzling hot concert & cookout series will be back this summer, with a twist.
Last fall, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers sent us a warning: they might sue us if we didn’t pay as much as $2,000 per year in licensing fees due to them whenever musicians play cover versions of any of the 17+ million songs ASCAP owns the rights to. We certainly recognize artists’ right to be paid royalties. But we didn’t have to do much of a cost-benefit analysis to decide an ASCAP license isn’t in our budget.
Instead of putting the kibosh on live music, however, our events manager Christian Holm-Hansen is fine-tuning the details of a befitting workaround: Our outdoor gatherings this summer will feature ONLY local unsigned musicians who write and play ONLY their own original music.
The live music you’ll hear at Greiser’s from now on will be as yet undiscovered by any performing rights organization. We’re excited to introduce you to acts and songs you’ve never heard, while we continue to bring you together with neighbors you haven’t met and connect you with friends you haven’t yet made!
Now our only hurdle is parking. As you may have heard, the Congregational Church of Easton across the intersection has rescinded its longtime invitation to let our guests use its parking lot. What to do?
We have two months to come up with another parking plan. We’re open to ideas. Send yours to christian@greisers.com. May we suggest you get your bicycle tuned up by mid June? |  | SAVE OUR DOUGH. LET THE CREDIT CARD COMPANIES EAT CAKE.
Most of us don't carry cash these days. Some businesses don't even accept it anymore. But at Greiser's, good old-fashioned cash is still Queen.
We know credit cards are a cost of doing business, and we’re grateful for any kind of purchase! Still, we'd love to spend less this year than the nearly $20,000 we paid in 2022 on card transaction fees.
You can help us by paying for your coffee or croissant with cash. Or, establish a store credit account with cash and charge your daily purchases to that. We’ll even take personal checks for store credit purchases.
As our “thank you” for paying with cash or charging to a cash-established store account, please take a numbered ticket at the register when you come in. (Raffle rules say no purchase is necessary. If you want a ticket, just take a ticket!)
We’ll draw one ticket on May 1 to win a $50 Greiser’s gift card. We’ll post the winning number on social media, in our next edition of this newsletter, and in the store for the month of May. And if this experiment reduces our expenses, we’ll do it again next month!
However you choose to pay, we appreciate you immensely. Thank you for being our raison d'être! See you soon!
love, Adrienne | | | |
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