Clearly the store has found success. Over its 21 years it has expanded to occupy three storefronts, a store size almost unheard of for a mom & pop in metro Boston. Cheeses and meats occupy one room; the bakery and most of the store's canned, bottled and boxed goods the center room; vegetables, fruits and flowers the third.

Though the store's wares are sophisticated, employees strive to make them accessible to everyone, making shopping at the store an educational experience that will expand customers' culinary horizons.

Though he has the knowledge and the product base to begin with, it's Gurdal's excitement that allows him to pull it off.

When it comes to food, "I'm like a child," he admits--if a new cheese comes into the store, he says his instinctive reaction is to run around and show it to everyone.

When Gurdal speaks of a kind of yogurt he tried for the first time on the Greek island of Chios, where he recently traveled for a food industry conference, he makes it sound like a transcendental experience.

"It was the most amazing yogurt I have ever tasted in my life," he says rapturously.

And in the 20 seasons he coached Harvard volleyball, he would bring his team to the store the night before the Ivy tournament and give them a seminar on cheese.