The Chef Supply Inc.

"Ever grind pepper using a three-foot-tall, 10-pound pepper mill?" Chris Hatzis inquires amusingly as he lifts the behemoth mahogany implement and gives it a crank. Chris is the manager of Chris' Store Fixtures, a kitchenware and restaurant supply store that opened in 1960 and has been a Hamilton institution for food lovers, restaurateurs and chefs alike ever since. Chris' parents, George and Christine, purchased the store from the original owner Chris, in 1988 and kept the name. The family relocated the store from its Barton Street location to King and Bay Streets before settling on James Street in 2006.

"My father had a background in the food and restaurant industry," Chris recounts of the family's perseverance through recessions and store floods. As a second generation operator of the family business, Chris, alongside his brother Alex, grew up amidst the cacophonic clatter of forks and tongs. "It was a natural progression for us to continue doing what we enjoyed," Chris says of how the entire family greets every customer with a smile. Stocking all manner of kitchen and baking implements as well as large commercial equipment, the store houses over 5000 different items from silicon macaron mats to 60-litre mixers.