Fustini’s Oils & Vinegars marks 18 years with four-day sale

A tasting room at 141 East Front Street has lasted long enough to make specialty oils and vinegars part of the downtown Traverse City routine. Fustini’s Oils & Vinegars marked 18 years in business with a four-day sale that ran April 9 through April 12, offering 18% off storewide and online.

The milestone says as much about downtown retail in Grand Traverse County as it does about the company itself. Fustini’s opened in 2008, when founder Jim Milligan launched the first tasting room in downtown Traverse City after being inspired by oil-and-vinegar rooms he had visited in Europe. The company says the concept was new for the market at the time, and the warm response from guests helped establish the business.

That early reaction appears to have become a durable customer base. Fustini’s has built its identity around tasting, sampling and cooking inspiration, not just shelf inventory. Its stores focus on olive oils, balsamic vinegars and other gourmet ingredients, a format that gives shoppers a reason to stop in, try products and leave with a specific recipe idea rather than a routine grocery run.

The company’s own anniversary theme, “18 Years of Flavor and Gathering,” underscored how Fustini’s has used experience as part of its brand. That matters in downtown Traverse City, where restaurants, boutiques and tourism traffic all compete for attention, and where the businesses that last are often the ones that become part of a visitor’s memory and a local’s habit.

Fustini’s has also grown beyond its original storefront while keeping a strong Traverse City identity. The company says it now operates in Holland, Ann Arbor, Petoskey and Traverse City. Even so, its local home remains downtown between Cass and Union streets, where the shop is listed at 141 East Front Street and keeps hours Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The name itself ties back to the product. Fustini’s says it comes from the Italian word “fustino,” a reference to the stainless steel drums traditionally used to hold fine olive oils and balsamic vinegars. Eighteen years later, that idea has become more than a name on a storefront. In a downtown market that can turn over quickly, Fustini’s has stayed put by making shopping feel personal, repeatable and distinctly Traverse City.