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| Photograph provided by Rachel |
There is so much more to &Grain, an artisan bakery in
Garwood, than just delicious bread – that’s made fresh daily – and cold brewed
iced Stumptown coffee on tap. It might be the quirky bicycle that sits in the
middle of the café, with baguettes in its basket, as if you are walking by the
transportation of choice of a French girl on the way to a picnic. It might be
the handwritten chalkboard menu.
Or it could be that wherever you turn, the ampersand follows
you.
The ampersand is certainly part of &Grain’s identity.
The coffee cups bear the symbol. The employee aprons have ampersands
embroidered on them. There are various materializations of the ampersand, all
in different typography but in the same Carolignian form. (That’s this & symbol.)
And John Ropelski, the owner of &Grain, certainly has thought about using
the ampersand as branding, placing it on the smallest of details. Even the
stickers on the to-go packages bear the little symbol.
There has been a resurgence in the usage of the ampersand.
We can most likely trace it to Twitter, since the symbol saves precious space.
But &Grain is not the only business to embrace the ampersand. Brands that
have been around for a while, such as H&M, AT&T, Dolce & Gabbana
and H&R Block, have all used the ampersand. But, for Ropelski, the ampersand
has become a huge part of the identity of &Grain.
He didn’t like the name at first; it was a suggestion from
his designer. “I wanted it to be Grain & Co., but she told me, ‘everyone is
‘& Co.’, everybody’s ‘& son,’” Ropelski said.
But the designer insisted, saying that it allowed people,
who maybe didn’t understand the name at first, to be in the know when they got
it.
Another reason Ropelski embraced the ampersand is that it
puts his restaurant at the top of an alphabetical list. When New Jersey Monthly
listed its “57 Hot Spots to Wake To,” his shop was first. “People thought
&Grain was No. 1 because of the way it’s listed.”
But using the ampersand isn’t always easy. Ropelski has
problems with vendors because sometimes ampersands are not allowed in the
system they use. Social media sites, such as Facebook and Instagram, don’t
allow the use of symbols in handles and URLs. Ropelski uses the word “and” to
replace the ampersand.
But Ropelski isn’t all bogged down about it. A few
inconveniences exist, but otherwise he is happy with the way the name turned
out. Embracing the ampersand may have ultimately paid off.
Kimberly Dublin is a senior journalism student at Rutgers University. She is a contributor to TheFatKidInside.com and is an editorial intern at EdibleFeast.com.
