We were lucky to catch up with Jake Buhler recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jake, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

The name Deli & Grocery came about during the summer between my Junior and Senior year at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art). I met Roman Finkelstein a few years earlier at MICA. He was also from NYC. During that transitional summer between our junior and senior years my dad, who is an artist, was away, so Roman and I took over his studio and dubbed it Toyland. We would meet up there almost every night after our internships, spending the hot summer nights projecting movies like The French Connection or episodes of Seinfeld on the paint splattered wall, drawing, and coming up with these ideas for t-shirt graphics based on small business and places we frequented. It was a very productive summer. We had fun and created the base of what would become Deli & Grocery. Towards the end of the summer when I started to think about what my senior thesis project could be, I realized that this stack of t-shirt ideas was the answer. They were essentially souvenir T-shirt designs, but for places that wouldn’t typically have souvenirs, and we had come up with enough ideas and concepts that we could make something tangible out of all of them. Roman and I started bouncing names back and forth. After some time we landed on Deli & Grocery. It represented everything we cared about in the brand – NYC, small businesses, and bright iconic signage. It was perfect.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I guess going to Urban Outfitters and Kidrobot as a middle schooler sent me on the track I’m on now. I always liked drawing but once I realized there was a way of putting your art on objects that I found fun like T-shirts and toys it changed the way I thought about creating. Both of my parents were artists so the creative gene and being surrounded by art from a very early age was already part of my world. I just found gallery shows and openings incredibly boring and so I wanted to avoid going to them as much as I possibly could. And from what I could tell there weren’t openings for T-shirts and toys. The more I got into these specific cultures the more I learned and became aware of other cultures. I learned about streetwear and the brands that people coveted – Anything, Off Bowery, Supreme, Stüssy, and Mishka to name a few. Eventually the idea of designing toys faded away and I was just left with T-shirts. I was halfway through high school now and decided I want to make my own shirts. I came up with a brand called Saint Cloud and used a drawing of a bat that I had done as the logo. It was kind of a goth skate brand aesthetic. I used all the money I had saved and bought myself a four color t-shirt screen printing press and proceeded to spend almost every night for the next few months teaching myself everything I could about the process of printing shirts. I made a exposure unit using photo lights and a pane of glass, a wash out booth in the bathroom, and even a few very crappy screens out of plywood. After a little while I had a stack of T-shirts with my designs on them. My dad hooked me up with one of his students, Gordon Stevenson, who had his own brand that was doing fairly well called Baron Von Fancy. Gordon gave me the lay of the land and tips for running a business. I kept Saint Cloud going for a while into college, but as I grew and learned more about crafts and art my aesthetic changed.

This really came to a head when a few years after seeing the film Beautiful Losers, my cousin got me an internship with Stephen Powers (aka ESPO), who she was working for at the time. I was in the presence of greatness, an absolute legend, and incredibly clever wordsmith. He taught me about sign painting and told stories about NYC. After the internship Stephen gave me a job, which I stayed at for just about 10 years.
Stephen’s influence helped shape Deli & Grocery, my love of sign painting, and reconfirmed my passion for graphic design and commercial arts. I was sent into motion and haven’t stopped since.

If you have multiple revenue streams in your business, would you mind opening up about what those streams are and how they fit together?

For Deli & Grocery, we very quickly found that people would reach out to us for designs of their own, like logos or shirts for their businesses. This was a welcomed opportunity as I had gone to school for Graphic Design and I very much wanted to pursue that career. Branding was fascinating to me so, when people started reaching out asking for us to do the branding and graphics for their businesses it was a no brainer. It was a fruitful endeavor too, providing us with the money it took to produce the expanding collections of clothing we were designing. There was a lot of learning and figuring out how to work with our first clients, who were thankfully very nice people. I’m still learning and figuring out aspects of running the business and I don’t expect that to stop any time soon, but it is enriching and part of the enjoyment. It kind of feels like being on a really good roller coaster.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Beyond the act of creating, which I would be happy to do 24/7 if I didn’t need to make money, I think making connections and meeting other similar minds is the most fantastic part of being a creative person. I feel like I have gained a community where everyone is interested in learning and teaching new things. I see people I know have great success and some failures, but rarely do they give up. The desire to create, whether it is illustrating, cooking, writing, or anything else becomes so important in some people that that exquisite force lifts them up and I feel it lifts the people up around them as well. It is truly rewarding to witness. I am humbled to have had the experiences I have and be in the position I am in.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://jakebuhler.com
• Instagram: @deli_n_grocery @jakey.b_and_the_deliboys
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jake-buhler-design
• Other: https://www.delingrocery.com

Image Credits
Matthew Kuborn (photo of Stephen Powers, Matt and myself)