Leonie Greenhalgh says she's "hanging up her apron" after close to two decades spent helping Newcastle home cooks step up their culinary game.
Yes, The Hunter's Pantry at The Junction is looking for a new owner.
The business was founded by Leonie in 2005 as The Essential Ingredient, a franchised boutique kitchen supply store at Junction Fair, before moving to a bigger site on Darby Street, Cooks Hill, in 2010.
It returned to Junction Fair in 2016 and in 2022 was rebranded as The Hunter's Pantry.
Operating as a retail and wholesale business, the store offers premium cooking, dining and kitchen products as well as pantry essentials and gourmet ingredients. It also hosts regular cooking classes.
Rebranding the business was an idea that had been years in the making.
"I was very keen to move away from a franchise model to an individual business, but then COVID-19 came along, stock was difficult to find, and I think everyone in business knew that the focus needed to be on working out how to do business in a different world - not how to do a different business," Leonie explains.
"So, that plan went on hold.
"In 2022 I decided to do it.
"Franchises are tricky, and while The Essential Ingredient was very flexible as it was such a small operation, there were still limitations and operational constraints to navigate.
"The benefit of launching The Hunter's Pantry was that I could operate independently, market in my own way, and stock the products I wanted to."
Any concerns she had about the name change were short lived. Customers liked the local reference in the name and felt a greater connection.
"It's been well received. I love it when my regulars bring in guests to their 'favourite shop'. What a blast that is," Leonie says.
"It has been difficult to do this, though, in terms of the economy. The cost of living, a personal crisis and business pressure have made the past year difficult.
"But then we get customer feedback and it all seems worthwhile."
Leonie's passion for cooking was nurtured by her parents at an early age.
"I was brought up in a family of cooks. My mother and father were very social people who always had a crowd of friends around," she says.
"My parents' closest friends lived next door. Theresa, the matriarch, was an interesting lady for her time. She left her parents in Lebanon at 18 to work as an au pair in Paris, where she studied cooking at the Le Cordon Bleu.
"That woman was an amazing cook. Fortunately, she taught my mother to cook. And my mother, whose own mother was a tailor, taught Theresa to sew.
"It was a lovely friendship and it meant that as children in the early '70s, we ate kibbeh, stuffed eggplants, falafel and hummus."
On Friday nights, back in the day, each Greenhalgh family member was tasked with choosing a country that Leonie's mother would use as inspiration for dinner.
"It was a lovely way to experience food and culture and spend family time," she says.
"I have six children, and I believe that introducing children to texture, flavour and interesting combinations of food is a gift. They develop an understanding of flavour and ingredients, good, healthy food, and a sense of adventure that transcends their entire lives.
"My children have a fabulous palate and an appreciation of food and cooking and are themselves, in the main, fabulous cooks. That comes from experience."
For 19 years Leonie has been the go-to person in Newcastle for people wanting to, for example, host a dinner party, improve their charcuterie offering, have the family over for Christmas lunch ... the list goes on. And she always has her finger firmly on the pulse when it comes to culinary trends.
The Hunter's Pantry is so much more than a store, I suggest, and she agrees.
"We have a community of like-minded customers, suppliers and supporters. I think it is more collaborative than a straight retail store," Leonie says.
"With a cooking school, a deli and a strong wholesale operation, our touch points are vast. Our customers trust us to source and deliver the best products we can. They trust our judgement and our knowledge.
"We've become a bit of an institution, and that's such a privilege."
The Hunter's Pantry website has a host of helpful information, too: recipes, a blog by Leonie, and an online retail and wholesale store.
"The blogs and recipes result from customers' questions, observations and reflections," she says.
"Talking to customers is such a motivating pleasure, and I get a sense of what people want to know - things that I might otherwise assume everyone understands or knows."
So, what's next? Leonie is considering returning to the legal profession where she will continue to help and inform people - but this time, as an advocate.
