“The chocolate milk tastes like a milkshake. I’ve never had chocolate milk like it. And it’s organic,” said Eric DenUyl, a manager for the new grocery store, Artisanal in Wilmette.
Artisanal opened in early September and is located on Linden Avenue in the Linden Square business district. It’s different from most other groceries in that it focuses on providing locally produced organic food.

The store replaced a detoriating, 50-year old grocery, Demas, that had struggled in recent years and went out of business in August 2011.

Neighboring business owners hope that the addition to the area will bring much needed commerce to the smaller and lesser known business district of Wilmette.

George Barkemeyer, an employee for Linden True Value Hardware across the street said, “It has affected business by bringing new people into the store, certainly from areas in and around Wilmette that just wouldn’t normally come down this street. Just bringing new traffic into the area hopefully will translate into our sales.”

Artisinal’s owners wanted the name of the grocery store to reflect the product they are selling; an “artisan” is someone who produces something in limited quantities by traditional means.

“We primarily get [the food] from local areas, pretty much anywhere in the Midwest, but primarily from this city,” DenUyl explained. There is also a focus on the quality of food they sell, as they want to give their customers the best. “Pretty much every product we sell here we taste ourselves, and we don’t sell it unless we love it,” DenUyl added.

The store sells freshly made sushi every day of the week. With California rolls, Rainbow rolls, eel rolls, and varieties of nigiri, the quality of sushi is one of the many bright spots for this newly opened grocery.

Though Artisanal has only been open for a little over two months, the store already has a string of regular customers, like Matt, who has been there a number of times. “Well, I like the local product, getting the food locally, and the organic nature of it as well,” Matt explained. This different approach to food is what attracted him to Artisanal at first, and has motivated him to keep coming back.

Another popular feature of the store is the butcher station, which offers a wide array of cuts. “Every week the butcher gets a cow, a lamb, and a pig, so we sell cuts that most butchers don’t sell or that you can’t really find most places,” said DenUyl. All the meat and poultry is purchased from local farmers, who practice whole-animal butchering, which promotes responsibility in their craft.

The meat available at Artisanal is one of the things that attracted Lisa, who goes there almost every day. “The meat is fabulous. The chicken is amazing. It has more flavor than anything you’ve ever had. And they’ll cut you anything you want,” said Lisa.

Regarding how she felt about other grocery stores, “I don’t even go to Jewel anymore unless I’m getting something like tinfoil. I will not buy any meat from Jewel because I know how the chickens they buy are raised, and I think that’s disgusting. I’ll go to Whole Foods, but I do think the meat here tastes better than what I have gotten at Whole Foods.”
Lisa’s reasoning for first shopping there was her love of eating and cooking. “[Artisanal] inspires me to cook more and cook better,” she explained. Another thing she really loved, was that one day she came in and met a farmer who sold her products at Artisanal. “Yesterday I was here when some farmer was bringing in her lettuces and the lettuce mix for the salads…and it was fabulous. And I know it was fresh because she was here.”

Although it may seem that being a primarily organic based grocery store may limit the quantity of available food, Artisanal has a very broad mix. “Everything in here is organic, there is a lot of stuff that you can’t get at Jewel, for example there is this ice cream from Michigan that is unbelievable,” DenUyl said.
Lisa summed up the character of Artisanal, “Everything is organic, and fresh and yummy, and it’s a little pricier, but you know you’re only going to eat so many meals in your life, so every one should be good.”