In light of the recent purchase of Whole Foods by Amazon, we feel we need to explain our value in the context of the massive scale, infrastructure and technology you can access with a few clicks. It’s true that we don’t have fulfillment centers or drones. It’s true that you may be able to find an item for a couple dollars less in a big box store or online, even though our margins are very reasonable. It’s true that we don’t have everything (although we believe we have an impressive inventory of the best of the best). So why bother?

Gourmetphile is a family business. It’s not just Blair and Zhanna and Yana. It’s an extended family composed of great people with decades of experience who are happy to share their knowledge about food and wine and beer with you, their patrons. This family also encompasses our discerning and passionate customers, who appreciate fine food and drink as an expression of culture.

We offer a Chef and a Sommelier to suggest things you may not have tried, and we encourage you to try before you buy for most items, expanding your palette. We offer a highly curated experience: we attend specialty market trade shows and we do countless tastings to cull superlative flavors from everywhere – sort of a playlist for your mouth. We have tons of tastings and classes – more than you will find anywhere else. We are a nexus for foodies and oenophiles. We attract a very interesting crowd and you are sure to make new friends here.

If it’s raining and you don’t want to come in, just order off our site, and we can deliver to your door at no extra charge. We do custom gift baskets and catering and yacht provisioning. Just give us some rough guidelines of what you want and how much you want to spend and we can do the rest. Do the big guys do all that?

So before you do the one click shopping, try to think about what you are giving up to get your “bargain”. It’s all about the intangibles.