Musings From the Genny: Week of May 23, 2025

Last week marked a huge milestone in the life of The Genny Craftsbury.  We got mini splits!!  This may not sound monumental, but allow us to walk you back through some of the "adventures" that make this moment one to celebrate…

When we first opened the store, we had no generator.  All of our systems were at the mercy of the weather and the power grid, and when a storm blew through and the power went out, it was a scramble to figure out how to keep food cold. At times we were emptying all the small refrigerator units and packing everything into our walk-in cooler where the temps could hold for longer. During extended outages, we ended up hauling product down the road to the Pete's Greens warehouse refrigerator.  We spent too many stress-filled hours schlepping food from one place to another in a frantic attempt to save things from spoiling.  

Eventually we got a generator - the first major game-changer. Now when the lights flickered off, they would immediately pop back on, refrigerators kept whirring, and business could carry on as usual.  But we soon realized this only solved half of the problem.  As we have grown, we have added more equipment and refrigeration units to the store, all of which function best in a climate-controlled environment, and most of which also pump out lots of heat from their compressors. On a hot, humid, summer day, the weather inside the store can rival the conditions outside, which is a recipe for disaster for a refrigerator. 

Our neighbor Ray (Chase Refrigeration) has bailed us out of countless refrigerator emergencies, but not without some significant losses along the way.  In recent summers, we have found ourselves opening the store in the morning to discover our deli case has overheated and all the prepared food inside has to be thrown away... or the cheese case is at 70 degrees and we have to move everything into the walk-in cooler... or the the chocolate bars on the shelf are literally melting inside their packages. Not to mention our staff! Our intrepid staff have sweat through brutal summer days, trapped between a hot pizza oven and the steamy dish pit, or marching up and down the stairs to the basement carrying heavy crates of drinks to stock the cooler. Box fans and window AC units can only do so much to combat the type of heat that a commercial kitchen cranks out during peak summer production, and for years our staff have heroically survived some very swampy working conditions.

But now... aahhhhhhhhhhh. We have entered a cool new era. We powered up the pumps last Wednesday on an 85 degree afternoon, and the effect was instant and palpable - a collective sigh of relief from humans and refrigerators alike as the first wafts of cool air kissed our flushed faces.

Thank you all for putting up with the sticky days of summers past, and here's to a future of comfortable working and shopping conditions for all!!