Martha Stewart is expanding her home-goods empire, this time by offering food and drink directly to her legions of devotees with her first cafe.
Martha Stewart Cafe will open in the Starrett-Lehigh Building in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighbourhood, where the domestic maven’s company headquarters are located. Cafe managers now are hiring baristas, Claudia Shaum, a spokeswoman for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., said in a phone interview yesterday.
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, which sells lifestyle magazines and brands cooking products, reported a $1.8 million loss last year amid competition from the Internet. It agreed to farm out most of its magazine operations to Better Homes and Gardens publisher Meredith Corp. in October to reduce costs.
The cafe doesn’t yet have an announced opening date and Shaum declined to say whether it would serve recipes created by Stewart.
Bloomberg News, edited by Hospitality Ireland
