We work hard to keep our shelves laden and our wares neatly displayed, and no one works harder to help us do that than Amaris Cuervo. The Los Angeles native moved to Novato as a child. She was working at a local dry cleaner’s when she was encouraged to apply for a position we’d posted by her sister, who works at Osteria Divino down the street, and by her older brother, Francisco, who was already in the produce department.
Amaris says she’s learned a lot in her time here. “I started in produce, and honestly I didn’t know half the names of things,” she says, since she grew up speaking a lot of Spanish at home. “I’d never even seen kale, and now I know we sell three kinds.” Now she’s our stocking manager, focusing on, as she says, “trying to make the store look nice.”
Amaris also helps keep us from being just an ordinary store. “We all do what we have to do, but there’s a lot more communication than if you work in a big supermarket where they don’t even know your name,” she says. “I feel like working here it’s more like a family than just a job.”
Family ties
Graham says that Amaris is “great at prioritizing.” “She’s got a sense of everything that needs to be done at any given moment,” he says. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve started to ask for her help with something and she was already doing it (or done with it).”
With nine siblings, Amaris may have learned a thing or two about prioritizing, as well as what makes a good family. It should be noted that the merchants and restaurants of Caledonia Street are growing very dependent on the talents of the Cuervo family. Besides her sister at Osteria Divino, another brother works across the street at Sushi-ran. With Amaris’ brother on the team, and two nieces, Ana and Zuleima, also on our deli staff, she says she’s heard our co-founder Paul Gaffner suggest we rename the store the Cuervos Market. We think he’s joking (at least so far).