Local Mattituck Couple Opens New Shop, Revel North Fork, In Cutchogue

CUTCHOGUE, NY - For one Mattituck couple, a dream long nurtured is set to blossom as they open their new shop, Revel North Fork, on Main Road in Cutchogue.

A soft opening for the shop, located at 28100 Main Road in Cutchogue, is planned for Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Jennifer DiVello and Thomas Hug, both graduates of Mattituck High School, have deep roots in the North Fork community.

So it made perfect sense to present a shop that offers the best of what the North Fork has to offer, including tastes from local farms and harvests.

They found that "home" was the best place to launch their new business, which will include an array of North Fork choices, including the Ice Cream Patch, Vestige Vintage, featuring agriculturally themed items such as antiques and home goods, "Suds and Muds," with a line of soaps and candles, and "North Fork Threads," with a collection tied directly to the North Fork.

Each of the lines will be showcased at Revel North Fork, DiVello said.

After graduating from Mattituck High School, DiVello graduated from Parsons School of Design in New York City with a major in industrial design and minor in furniture design. "While I enjoyed living in and spending a great deal of time there, I always found myself coming back home," she said.

Her experience includes work at a large advertising agency as well as independent projects.

But no matter where she worked, her North Fork values rang true.

"My mother is a hardworking local farmer whom I've always admired," DiVello said. "Growing up on her farm has allowed me to learn about farming — whether I wanted to or not. I then applied what she had taught me to my design background and developed her website."

Farming helped DiVello to plant the seed for the new shop. "I love the possibilities of what you can do with what you grow. Being half Italian, I'm quite the foodie as well. This is how The Ice Cream Patch was born. Everyone loves ice cream and being able to use locally grown produce as a key ingredient in making unique flavors was a great experiment. Whether it was something as simple as using her strawberries for 'Strawberry Fields' or more interesting produce like sugar snap peas or basil, the reception was overwhelmingly positive," DiVello said.

Last year, she said, the couple launched Vestige Vintage, a small shop that she opened right next to her mom's farm in Mattituck.

"Our initial vision was to sell agriculturally themed items like antiques and other home goods. In considering how else I could utilize my mother's crops to pique visitors' interests, I decided to make a small run of soy candles with actual rosemary and basil with mint. The next thing I know, half of the shop was filled with candles with scents of fig, milk and honey, rosemary and pumpkin plus many more," DiVello said. "Throw in our soap, made with same produce and more, and our 'Suds & Muds' line came to fruition. The antiques and home goods did well but it was really the candles and soap that caught people's attention."

In addition, as last season unfolded, the couple also launched a line of locally inspired apparel, North Fork Threads, designing each style and logo themselves, with each piece in the collection directly connected to the North Fork.

To-go cups at the Ice Cream Patch will be available once crops are ready for harvest, DiVello said.

And their create vision just keep flourishing: Next up, Local Lovelies, a locally inspired jewelry line, will be spotlighted; each piece is made with items either found or grown right on the North Fork, DiVello said.

Cutchogue seemed the natural spot for the new business. "We want to remind people that Cutchogue is a very cool place to be. Both my husband and I have spent a lot of time in Cutchogue throughout the years growing up — whether it was at Pequash Beach, golfing at Cedars, the trails at Downs Farm Preserve, the Chicken barbecue or enjoying the wineries, we find Cutchogue to be very special."

The location itself, she said, is in a "prime space right on Main Road, and it just felt right. Cutchogue has its own vibe that we are very proud and appreciative to now be a part of."

The vision for Revel North Fork, DiVello said, is to "simply embrace and celebrate our area. Everything that we'll offer will either be grown, found, inspired or made right from the North Fork. No substitutes. We've spent a great deal of time in not only making various products but making sure they are unique, special and properly representative of the North Fork," she said. "The experience that we'd like to provide is twofold: to allow our local customers to be proud of where they're from and for visitors, to give them a taste of just some of the many incredible things our area has to offer. We have and will continue to take a great amount of pride in the items we plan to sell."

The North Fork, both said, has grown in an amazing way over the past decade. "For us, it only makes us appreciate where we come from even more. Visitors literally come from across the world to experience the North Fork. Our area has so much to offer and we hope to be able to play even a small part in displaying it."

The shop aims to meet a wide array of needs, they said. "We're very confident that we truly do have something for everyone. Are you in a jam and need a gift for a housewarming or birthday? We have you covered no matter the budget. Even the guys are kept in mind and taken care of with some of the North Fork Threads collection."

The couple said they're proud to embrace and represent a North Fork "movement" focusing on creativity and small business with "homegrown fare and artistry. That goes for us both as store owners and consumers ourselves. We think that people appreciate quality crafted goods — but especially when there is a story behind it. We are prideful in everything that will be on our shelves. Many of our items, such as the antiques, have our own stories attached to them from our always interesting picking excursions," they said.

The goal, they said, is to keep things at the shop "fresh, invigorating and different. This goes for both the general aesthetic of the store's design but also to the products themselves. Anthropology is something that has always been of interest to us, so it was important for us to use that as a motivator when designing the space and products."

North Fork Revel, DiVello said, is meant to be a place for people to enjoy, a place they visit to get a taste, literally and figuratively, of what the area has to offer. "Whether we're able to pique the interest of customers with some of our more innovative products or giving them an opportunity to reminisce after checking out our vintage items, it's all part of having a place of business that is welcoming."

And personally, the couple says, Revel North Fork is a dream realized: "It has always been a dream of ours to have our own store. We have so many ideas that we want to explore and we truly believe that Revel North Fork will be the perfect platform. We also believe that paying homage, being respectful and reveling the North Fork culture will go a long way in allowing the community to hopefully embrace our vision, as well."

For additional information, email info@revelnorthfork.com.