Bread and Butter Market opens in Riverhead

Fans of "Harry Potter" may recall the Room of Requirement, a hidden chamber at Hogwarts that Dobby the house elf explained in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" "is always equipped with the seeker’s needs."

I was put in mind of that room while exploring Bread and Butter Market, a compact month-old shop in Riverhead that is poised to meet any and every takeout, grocery and retail challenge.

Need pancakes for breakfast, a pressed panino for lunch, a grab-and-go salad for dinner? Or are you looking for a loaf of sourdough, a gluten-free muffin, a well-pulled espresso or a scoop of homemade gelato? Perhaps you need a box of Saltines or Inés Rosales olive oil tortas or brownie mix or Special K, a can of beans, a frozen pizza, a truffled salami or a package of pasta. Guests are coming and you need paper plates. You ran out of laundry detergent or Benadryl. You are on your way to a birthday party and you need a gift (how about a candle?), a gift bag and a card. You’ve been invited to the North Fork for the weekend and you forgot diapers, a toothbrush, a beach tote.

Neither Diane DiMenna nor her partner, her 24-year-old daughter, Tess, had retail or restaurant experience when they opened the store on Memorial Day. "I made the store that I wanted to exist here," Diane said. "The idea was to create a hub for people to be able to get a little of whatever they needed. No one should have to drive 4½ miles to get a quart of milk." The Sound Avenue building had been a deli-grocer-general store at least as far back as the 1940s and she plans to transform the adjacent property, a former liquor store, into a wine shop as soon as she receives her permits from the New York State Liquor Authority.

Chef Marco Pasos runs the kitchen and presides over the deli counter, where sandwiches range from a simple BLT ($14) to the Iron Pier Hero (prosciutto, salami, pepperoni, mortadella, roasted peppers, arugula and mozzarella on a semolina roll, $18) and the Dune Panino (vegan meatballs, marinara, melted mozzarella and Parmesan on a panino roll, $22). His chicken salad already has a following as do the "pop-top parfaits," deconstructed desserts — such as banana cream pie or strawberry shortcake — whose components are layered into a transparent pop-top "can."

Formerly dual citizens of Manhattan and Southampton, Diane, Tess and Claire, 20, DiMenna moved full-time to the North Fork in 2022. They bought a working farm that also had room for Claire’s ever-growing animal sanctuary, Critterville. On Thanksgiving 2023, one of the rescued dogs, a Great Pyrenees, escaped. "This community got up from their tables, drove around, made flyers, and helped us find our dog," she recalled. "And three days later we found her."

DiMenna can’t tell the story without tearing up. "We were outsiders. City people. Hamptons people. And they just opened their arms to us. This store is my big thank you."

Bread and Butter’s range of products may rival that of a Super Target, but the 1,250-square-foot selling floor means that she must be intentional about which products she’s going to carry. Priority is always given to local products — fruits, vegetables, eggs, baked goods, jam. One exception is the coffee, which is roasted by La Colombe in Philadelphia. "I think it’s the best," she confessed. "And we don’t grow coffee beans here."

Bread and Butter Market, 5087 Sound Ave., Riverhead, 631-779-2120, breadbutterandbottle.com. Open 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. Coffee window opens at 6:30 a.m., gelato window stays open to 8 p.m.