Why Ina Garten Doesn’t ‘Miss’ Her Barefoot Contessa Store

TL;DR: 

• Ina Garten owned her Barefoot Contessa store from 1978 to 1996.
• She said in 2010 it served as a “great foundation” for her current work but she doesn’t “miss it.”  
• Ina Garten has no plans of ever reopening the store. 
• Her newest cookbook, Go-To Dinners, debuts on Oct. 25. 

Barefoot Contessa fans might yearn to walk through the doors of the eponymous Hamptons store Ina Garten once owned. As for the Food Network star herself, she doesn’t exactly feel the same. Garten once said she doesn’t “miss” the daily grind of her Barefoot Contessa store.

Ina Garten called running her Barefoot Contessa store ‘very intense’

Now 74, Garten told The Morning Call in 2010 that her specialty food store helped prepare her for her current work. That is writing cookbooks and hosting her own Food Network show. 

“I loved it for almost 20 years,” she said in a phone interview. “It was a great foundation for what I’m doing now, but I don’t miss it.”

Sure, it was a place for Hampton residents and visitors to get coconut cupcakes or one of Garten’s now-famous roast chickens. But it required a lot behind the scenes. 

“It was very intense. I worked 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. six days a week,” Garten said. 

Garten bought the Barefoot Contessa store in 1978 after leaving her White House job as a nuclear budget analyst. Initially, the store was 400 square feet and located in Westhampton, New York. 

Garten made $87 — before expenses — on her first day at the store. Eventually, it became a success coming to occupy a 3,000-square-foot storefront in East Hampton. 

Garten ran Barefoot Contessa for nearly two decades until selling it to two of her employees — a manager and a cook — in 1996. 

Ina Garten has no plans of ever reopening her Barefoot Contessa store

Will the Barefoot Contessa ever go back to her roots as a specialty food store owner? The answer’s no, Garten doesn’t intend to reopen the store. 

“I had a wonderful time. I had a specialty foods store for almost 20 years,” she told Today in 2017. “I loved every minute of it and it was really the basis of my cookbooks now. But I think that was then and this is now. I love writing cookbooks.”

After Garten sold the store it remained open until 2003 when doors were closed for good. At the time, Garten had already become a successful cookbook author having released three Barefoot Contessa cookbooks. 

For fans who want to be transported to Garten’s Barefoot Contessa store look to Nancy Meyers’ Something’s Gotta Give. The market in the 2003 romantic comedy is based on Garten’s store. 

Ina Garten’s ‘Go-To Dinners’ cookbook hits shelves on Oct. 25

Another Barefoot Contessa cookbook is on the way. Garten’s newest title, no. 13 in her cookbook line-up, has an Oct. 25 release date.

Inspired by lockdown during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, it’s a “collection of easy, make-ahead, prep ahead, freeze ahead, and simply assembled recipes that you’ll want to make over and over again.” 

Additionally, season 2 of Garten’s Be My Guest series is underway.