MKT: Grafton
At the center of the impossibly picturesque Grafton Village stands a handsome two-story structure with red clapboard and white trim. A pair of deacon’s benches flanking the entrance welcomes lingering on the simple wooden porch. This general store has served as the heart of the community for nearly 200 years. And thanks to the dynamic duo of June Lupiani and Ali Hartman, locals and visitors remain happily nourished in that very space, 363 days a year.
The team at MKT: Grafton consider themselves “purveyors of goodness.” Ali jumps in to explain: “That means goodness in our food, in interactions with our guests, our producers, our team. Everything flows from that spirit.”
June takes it from here. “We have an amazing team, several of whom have been with us from the start. We have a monstrous amount of work to be done daily, but everything gets accomplished with more joy if we’re good to one another—and ourselves—in the process.”
Like many crazy dreams, MKT: Grafton started with a glass of wine. Perhaps several.
The two women and their families had landed separately in Grafton a few months apart in early 2015, June from out West and Ali from Brooklyn. As young mothers, each with a two-year-old son and living a few doors apart in a small village, they quickly connected. About a month after they settled in, the Grafton General Store closed. “We were crushed,” June recalls. “It had already become a lifeline for us, an established resource for the community.”
The smaller the town, the greater the impact a general store has. While bemoaning the loss over a glass of rosé in Ali’s backyard one spring evening, the two entrepreneurs decided to revive the community hub, incorporating modern twists. “Keep in mind, we had really only known each other about a month,” Ali says. “But we knew immediately we were meant to take on this project together,” June adds. Their bid was submitted in June, accepted in August, and renovations began in November 2015.
With the help of archival sleuthing by the Grafton Historical Society, the women ascertained that the general store had indeed served food in the early 1900s, so they were able to secure proper licensing to build a commercial kitchen. “We wanted to create a modern general store with a full bakery, deli and cheese counter,” Ali says. In the process, they also developed a catering company, “No longer our best kept secret,” June adds with a laugh. “We’re at a fever pitch with weddings and private events most weekends from summer through fall.”
“There were tears and cheers as we tackled the normal hassles of renovating the structure and installing a commercial kitchen,” June explains. “We put in a ton of sweat equity, and in less than six months, we completed the project. Our kids, our husbands and our extended families jumped right in along with the local contractors.”
Ali laughs, “We had no idea what we were getting into. Call it romantic idealism!” June interjects, “We quickly learned there’s nothing romantic about moving thousands of pounds of food a week, among our various enterprises.”
As with most successful partnerships, both women bring diverse and complementary talents. June is general manager responsible for every aspect of the operations and team management. She is a daily presence at MKT: Grafton and all their projects and events across the state. Ali splits time between Vermont and business travel for a finance firm. While she may jump behind the counter or pop into an event, at this point, she focuses on MKT’s financials, marketing, communications and social media, all of which can be done from a distance. “It’s like a marriage,” June says. “We see and do different things, bring unique skills. We read each other well and know when to divide and conquer.” Ali admits, “We might disagree from time to time, but we know two things. One, when it comes to running this business, we’re far better together than we would be apart. And two, on the stuff that matters—like our values and vision—we are always aligned.”
As the hub of a rural village, the shop bustles all day. In the morning, customers can pull a freshly made breakfast sandwich from the warming case, or a cider donut topped with thick maple cream and crumbled bacon. The bakery team keeps the counters filled with muffins and scones, cookies and brownies, savory and sweet pastries.
Walk into the store at lunchtime and you’ll be greeted by round tins with pizza still warm from the oven, displayed on planks balanced amidst a wooden step ladder. “People love our pizza,” Ali says, “so now we do Friday pizza night with specialty pies. One has flank steak, roasted onions and Bayley Hazen Blue cheese with a balsamic drizzle. It’s a culinary flavor bomb!”
The deli case is stocked with whole rotisserie chickens, roasted salmon, meat loaf, housemade ricotta gnocchi, and pierogi. Seasonal soups such as their butternut squash and apple or curried red lentil provide nourishing comfort. Crunchy salads are chock-full of Vermont goodness and protein add-ins. Signature sandwiches like the Roast Beast, Fox and Pig, and Reuben on Rye are piled with tender sliced meat and cheese, grilled to golden perfection.
“People can get a turkey sandwich anywhere, so we want to provide an outstanding sandwich and the best experience,” Ali says. “Since Graft isn’t exactly on the main road, we want to make the trip worthwhile. Visitors can pick up Vermont specialty products, including local cheeses, preserves and condiments, or carved slate trivets, wooden serving boards, and ceramics. Locals know they can stop by for grocery staples in the back of the shop.”
When the women started MKT: Graft on, they built it initially around their own vision. Now it’s about what the community wants, and customers are part of the decision making. “We do whatever it takes to keep the place relevant and successful,” Ali says. “This project is a form of modern activism. We’re a little enterprise in a small village, working to make a difference every day in how we feed, support and employ people.”
“That person who comes in daily for a cup of coffee and a donut is just as important as the big event we’re catering on the weekend,” June adds. “We treat people the way we want to be fed and nurtured. Remembering that keeps us focused and grounded.”
June is a registered dietitian with a career in spas and wellness cuisine. She grew up in a family of cooks and worked her first restaurant job at 13. “I became a dietitian to get out of the restaurant world. The kitchen scene had become too hard core. I’m back in this world, but in an atmosphere that we created, with values that align with my belief system.”
During college, Ali worked as a nanny for an American family who summered in France. “All of the sudden, I was responsible for feeding the three kids, so I learned to cook using amazing ingredients in the South of France. It was an unexpected but beautiful introduction to cooking and providing nourishment. Now whenever I travel, I take cooking classes to connect to a place and learn the culinary history and traditions of that region.”
The women approach cooking much the way they started this business: Build something out of nothing and make the most of what they have, based on an intuitive sense. Ali believes that “Cooking at home can be spontaneous or a deeply centering experience with all senses engaged.”
“Food is the most personal part of our lives,” she continues. “Look at a person’s kitchen and see the pieces she gravitates to: a chipped teacup, a special knife, how she keeps her salt. These things tell you so much about a person. And is—to me—one of the greatest joys of home cooking.” June adds, “I have my grandma’s meat grinder. She was Spanish and made chorizo in it. I can still see the lard, pork and spices she would use.” This summer, the women expanded into a new venture—MKT: Weston.
“The Weston Playhouse Theater Company reached out to us in early spring,” June says. “They have a commercial kitchen on the ground level of the theater with a 60-seat dining room, and they offered the opportunity to us.” While MKT: Graft on is fast casual, MKT: Weston is fine dining.
“Transitions foster growth and independence,” June says. “Whenever we take on a new project, whether adding pizza night or running a full-on restaurant, it allows us to empower other parts of our team to lead. How beautiful is that?” Ali pauses and adds, “It’s pretty amazing when we step back and look at what we’ve created. We had no idea what we were doing, but our willingness to learn, our tenacity, our work ethic, our hustle, it’s all brought us here. June nods in agreement. “This work hasn’t always been easy, but it has been worth it. We started out wanting to cook delicious things and create experiences that spread goodness. And here we are still going strong, working smarter and dreaming bigger each day.”
To think it all started with a glass of rosé…
JUNE LUPIANI ON COMFORT DISHES
We always make red sauce. Good oil, fresh garlic and crushed tomatoes. I’ll brown up some meat, add it to the sauce, cook some pasta and there’s two dinners plus a lunch and then sauce for pizza later in the week. Tacos are also a favorite and we always have a stack of tortillas on hand. Tacos are great for us because Moses can put mild salsa on his, and Joe and I can add some chopped roasted serrano peppers plus generous amounts of hot sauce. Everybody wins!
ALI HARTMAN ON COMFORT DISHES
I love to make red lentils with curry and coconut milk with wild rice because it’s fast and so satisfying. We make a smoked salmon tartare spread to layer with cream cheese on everything bagels, and killer breakfast sandwiches. The secret there is my spicy mayo. I also make a giant bowl of cacio e pepe bucatini. We don’t portion it out. Just sit around a big bowl and everyone chows down, twirling pasta and feeling slightly defiant. I’ll make that when we have guests arriving late to Vermont and we need to eat but also just want to hang and indulge.
JUNE LUPIANI ON HOLIDAY TRADITIONS
Joe and I are both Italian so we still do Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve. It takes about five hours to prepare, but we drink wine, laugh and get fry oil everywhere. We also make lots of homemade pasta with an Imperia crank pasta maker we’ve had forever. The whole family is involved, especially the dogs. Having dogs makes cleanup so much easier!
ALI HARTMAN ON HOLIDAY TRADITIONS
For the last few years, we’ve done a Friendsgiving and have an open house weekend for Thanksgiving each year. On Christmas Eve we do cioppino. We have a big DIY oatmeal bar with lots of trimmings early on Christmas morning—because Santa is exhausted—and then do a buffet of indulgent but easy appetizers for lunch. Usually for dinner we’ll do roast chickens, a big salad with delicious vinaigrette and whipped potatoes. We put toasty cubes of bread in the bottom of a wide bowl, place the chickens on top, and pour the rich, salty, delicious pan gravy on top of the chickens. The bottom of that bowl is my favorite Christmas gift each year.
ALI HARTMAN ON COOKING AT HOME
These days we do so little with our hands—outside of holding a phone or typing on a keyboard—so working with food in my kitchen or garden is restorative, creative time for me. There’s two kinds of at-home cooking for me. “Get people fed!” cooking, which happens quickly and somewhat thoughtlessly with whatever is on hand. And then “Feed people” cooking, which happens on weekends or holidays, when the house is full of friends and kids and noise and you want to gather people. That’s the kind of cooking I do when I want to sit out in the crisp air of the porch, light candles, open wine and be with our food and each other far longer than we should.
JUNE LUPIANI ON COOKING AT HOME
My husband, Joe, and I love cooking with our six-year-old son, Moses. It’s not just about introducing him to life skills and cooking methods, it’s about encouraging him to take risks. He uses a knife well and grills in the backyard on an open flame pit fire. He knows to get the cast-iron hot first, before he pours in the oil. He’s broken down a salmon, helped process deer and foraged his own fiddleheads.
MKT: Grafton | @mktgrafton
Grafton Historical Society
Weston Playhouse Theater Company
