Kalman Emanuel is the owner of Country K in Tannersville New York. The grocery store also has a dairy restaurant and a bed-and-breakfast on-site called Country Suites.
1. What’s Country K’s best-selling item?
Marshmallows. We sell a crazy amount. Also tons of graham crackers and chocolate — gotta make those s’mores! — and ice cream hot dogs basically the big summer foods.
2. Why did you open Country K?
My family started coming to Tannersville from Montreal where we live when I was five — we’d come for weekends and sometimes a bit longer. When I was 12 we finally took a place for the summer and we’ve been coming ever since. Tannersville is a unique summer destination: It’s in the Catskills but not what the rest of us call the Catskills — it’s an hour away from any other Jewish store or community. Tannersville isn’t the crazy-happening overly busy loud part of the mountains it’s more relaxing and very chilled. We’re five miles from Hunter Mountain a popular ski resort and the area is gorgeous the air fresh as can be. There was a kosher grocery in town but it closed down a few years ago so I decided to open Country K. I’ve always been the entrepreneur type — I started a bike-fixing business when I was nine that built up pretty big here in Montreal. I was the guy selling drinks in yeshivah that kind of thing and I thought this would be an interesting challenge. And there are more than 200 families in Tannersville in the summer so we really needed it.
3.What’s your restaurant’s most popular item? Most unusual?
