The Butler’s Pantry has their grand opening

The Butler’s Pantry Kitchen and Home Store at 1411 Broadway in Imperial had its grand opening on Friday, Dec. 1.
“We have been open for an hour now and so far we have had 50 customers,” Tom Rau said as he handed out scratch tickets with in store specials and other surprises within them.
We had the idea to open a business like the Butler’s Pantry for about a year now, owners Tom and Stephanie Rau said. It is a multi faceted store and we expect it to expand in other wares and interests, Stephanie said. Right now, among other things, we have counter top appliances of pots and pans, knife sets and other cutlery, mixers, coffee pots, cutting boards,iron Dutch ovens, various stone ware and other such items. The hardware items we sell are of brand names you don’t see in most stores because we didn’t want to be redundant with common products, she said.
Our son Nathanael, 22, will be a greeter and customer assistant. Nathanael graduated from the Chase County Schools System in 2020 as a student with Down’s Syndrome. He is a very happy and outgoing person and we decided that we would all enjoy working in a busy store with a lot of customer interactions. Stephanie said.
Nathanael and I have cooked together a lot and that started the idea of a kitchen appliance store. Nathanael also likes wearing bow ties and that led to the idea of butlers back in the day commonly wore them, And in a house with servants butlers were in charge of some food items and had a storage area known as a “Butler’s Pantry,” she said.
Currently we have coffees, cocoas, candies, Christmas candies, and other gourmet food items. We have a display of Ariston Greek olive oil, vanilla, pretzels, and nuts.
The non-food items we have for sale here I acquired from my personal shopping from local vendors that sell cottage industry made things like the candles and those walnut cutting boards, she said.
We have done “Community Food Pantry” volunteering and we decided to put out an incentive to our shoppers. We have a produce scale and a sign that informs our shoppers that if they donate up to 10 pounds of non-perishable food items we will give them up to 10% off of any total purchase. We have had several donations in that area today.
Presently we are celebrating Christmas and we expect to have seasonal themes throughout the year to include the greeting cards. We also have a selection of holiday themed paper plates, she said.
Other ideas we have for possible future expansions are a kitchen area and have cooking classes, Stephanie said.
Tom and Stephanie have two other sons: Nickolas, 19, who graduated from Chase County Schools in 2022, who is currently attending the University of Wyoming studying Statistics; and Noah, 15, who is a sophomore at Chase County Schools.
The Butler Pantry business hours are: Tues, Thurs, Fri, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Wed 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.; and Sat 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. They can be reached at 308-414-6110.