European Market Opens on Main Street

The European Market on Main Street celebrated its grand opening on Saturday with a sampling of some of the foods sold daily.

The market, which officially opened its doors on Sept. 30, offers foods of various origins, including Polish, German, Italian and Spanish.

Although none of the food is prepared on site, owners Kathy and Robert Korab have selected local companies to provide daily its fresh bread, meat and other offerings to sell at their 247 Main St. location.

Hudson Bread, located in North Bergen, provides the bread locally and had a representative on hand Saturday to provide samples of more than a dozen of the artisan breads sold at the market.

Chatham Borough resident Dawnel Kraus, who said she likes to buy fresh bread a lot, saw balloons in the window for the grand opening and decided to stop in.

"I'm really happy to have something like this in the community," Kraus said.

In addition to the bread, those attending the grand opening were able to sample Polish chocolates, some of the prepared meal offerings from Raffetto's, a New York pasta shop and a few of the meats provided by Pulaski Meats in Linden.

"A lot of the foods we are selling are ones we have been eating for years," Robert Korab said, including Pulaski Meats on that list. "What is great about a lot of these foods is that you can't find them in the bigger stores because these companies only sell to high-end stores and specialty shops, like us."

Korab said that, in its early phase, they are really trying to be as flexible as possible for the Chatham community.

"If people say they want certain things, we'll write them down and see if we can get them," Korab said. "We are open to suggestions."

Although he said the shop, which is currently open Monday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., might eventually close earlier due to less business in the final hour, daily business has been good so far as a result of regular customers coming in for bread and meat.

One of those regulars is Chatham resident Thom Colucci, who has already enjoyed many of the foods sold at the market, including the manicotti, which he said is delicious.

"This place is wonderful and a nice addition to Chatham," Colucci said. "The proprietors are wonderful people and really seem to understand customer service."

Although the Korabs live in Woodbridge, Kathy Korab has worked in Chatham for 10 years at Les Cheveux Salon and said she tries to pay attention to what people in the community want.

Since there aren't many stores like The European Market locally, she thought there might be interest from the community.

"Whenever a new store opens up, I always hear a lot of customers say, 'Please, not another hair salon,'" Kathy Korab said.

The Korabs said that, in just more than 10 days, they have received a lot of positive feedback on the market, which had been the site of Pascarella tailor shop for many years, from various members in the community, including one woman who had bought stuffed spinach.

"She came back to buy two more," Kathy said, "because her son told her that it was…'banging.'"