NORTHAMPTON — A plethora of imported British chocolate, tea, condiments, meats and other food will soon be available in downtown Northampton.
Brits R U.S., a British and Irish specialty food store, will open at 16 Armory St. the first week in August, according to owner Alan Greaves.
Greaves moved from Sheffield, England in 1999. He opened the first Brits R U.S. location in Pittsfield five years ago after growing tired of driving to New York City or Boston just for some British delicacies. “I got fed up driving 200 miles to find a store like mine to get the stuff I missed from home,” he said.
He opened a second store in Albany, New York in 2013. That location is closing this month due to lack of foot traffic, Greaves said.
The high number of pedestrians and proximity to the Five Colleges is something that attracted him to Northampton, he said.
“Northampton’s a hopping little town,” he said. “There’s a lot, lot of foot traffic.”
But still, a healthy portion of the business at Brits R U.S. comes from customers willing to drive the distance to pick up some Marmite or Yorkshire pudding mix.
“There’s nowhere locally, really” to buy British food, Greaves said. “I have quite a few customers come to my Pittsfield store from Northampton. Hopefully we’re going to pick up a lot of local business, too.”
The Northampton store will offer a variety of dry and frozen foods from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, including candy, Irish breads, back bacon (a different cut than American “streaky” bacon), shrimp-flavored potato chips, Ribena black currant juice, meat pies, Scottish soft drink Irn-Bru and haggis (fresh, frozen and canned).
“All the stuff your average Brit misses from home,” Greaves said.
Brits R U.S. will take over the space vacated by Theory Skateshop, which is moving to 32 Main St.
Greaves said to start he expects to hire some part-time staff and hopefully will need to hire full-timers eventually.
Chris Lindahl can be reached at clindahl@gazettenet.com.