By Andrew Alonzo | aalonzo@claremont-courier.com

Above the checkout counter at The Hens’ Kitchen Shoppe is a photo of its late founder Mary O’Brien vacationing in Hawaii. To the left is O’Brien’s Hens’ Kitchen Shoppe apron, with her name tag still attached.

This holiday season, like every year since it opened in 2017, the store at 141 Yale Ave. is bedecked with decorative Santas, elves, holiday trees, and cooking materials. The elaborate display would have pleased O’Brien, who died of breast cancer in 2023, said store manager and close friend of more than 30 years, Kellie Wright.

The Hens’ Kitchen Shoppe’s holiday décor pictured on November 20. Courier photo/Andrew Alonzo

“I’m here every day because I know she’s here with me,” Wright said. “She was an ornery person; she’s very opinionated. There’s many times I feel she’s like ‘Kellie, what are you buying now or what?’ I feel her all the time, and I can hear her talking to me all the time … It’s all healing, being in here all the time.”

The work of transforming the store every year both honors O’Brien’s legacy and reminds Wright what the holidays are all about.

“It’s always been family,” Wright said. “It’s getting people together. It’s not just, excuse my language, we don’t want people to buy shit just to buy it. It’s an experience. It’s setting up a home and kids and being raised with traditions of doing something. And we hope that the things that we buy are going to benefit your tradition and enhance it.”

The Hens’ Kitchen Shoppe manager Kellie Wright. Courier photo/Andrew Alonzo

O’Brien was diagnosed prior to the 2023 holiday season. Still the store remained festive.

“That was very difficult, because we had already bought the [inventory],” Wright said. “For a retail shop you buy Christmas in January, so things were already coming before she passed. So we had already talked about, ‘I’ll remember this. Oh, I remember this stuff, it’s so cute,’ just being really excited about the stuff that we had purchased together.”

Losing O’Brien was tough on Wright and her three sisters.

“We had always joked for 30 years that Mary was our fifth sister, and it never was more true that when she was diagnosed,” Wright said. “I loved Mary, we were close. We did everything together. We’re a very close family, so always doing everything is one thing, but then all of a sudden … When things hit the fan and cancer is involved and the idea that you could at some point lose somebody is very, very heavy. And I didn’t ever realize how much she really was my sister up until when you’re crying at night with them.”

Holiday décor and kitchen ware line the shelves of The Hens’ Kitchen Shoppe. Courier photo/Andrew Alonzo

Now two seasons on from her friend’s death, Wright has had time to reflect on the journey.

“It’s ironic that out of all the places that we could have been able to rent here, that this is the only place in town that kind of looks like a home,” Wright said. “You walk up to a banister, there’s a fireplace. It looks homey, and that’s what you want it to be.”

The Courier profiled O’Brien when she opened Hens’ Kitchen in 2017. “We love to cook and we love kitchen stuff, and it was something that the Village needed,” she said.

Patti Frazer at The Hens’ Kitchen Shoppe November 20. Courier photo/Andrew Alonzo

Wright said that sentiment never wavered.

“Her vision is the same as our vision as we talked about everything,” Wright said. “We planned, everything down. I still have notes from opening the store, what we wanted and why we want to be here for the people in town. It’s just the same.”

The Hens’ Kitchen Shoppe, at 141 Yale Ave., Claremont, is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. More info is at thehenskitchenshoppe.com.