Oven To Table (PAD) Offers the Best

The general wonderfulness of Millburn's Oven to Table is an open secret among savvy Springfield-area shoppers looking to set a beautiful holiday table on a budget.

It’s a go-to source for interior decorators and designers; it’s a favorite "shop for hostess gift" location; and for the rest of us, it’s a treasure-house holding beautiful plates, platters, bowls, serving pieces, pitchers and mugs in a rainbow of colors.

Oven to Table has been at 535 Millburn Ave. for nine years, right across from the old Saks building, first in its incarnation as PAD, which stocked (mostly European) custom tableware and gifts.

Now, it’s a factory-direct-to-the-customer merchant of the same high quality tableware but at a heart-stopping 60-70 percent off regular retail prices. These days, who doesn’t love a bargain, especially one that allows us to keep standards of high quality and luxury.

Store owner Parry Yohannan has been in the tableware business for more than 20 years. Over the years, he not only developed an incredible eye but also, while on European buying trips, he established relationships with many factory owners.

Recently, he recognized an opportunity to reinvent his business and stock Oven to Table’s shelves with the overruns from the same Portuguese, Germany and Bulgarian factories that create products sold at big, exclusive stores such as the ones at The Mall at Short Hills.

His assistant, Daria Fitzgerald, said, “You pay less here for prettier things than you find at the discount stores on Route 22 or 10. A $10 plate here is the same quality, really from the same factory, as the $40 ones sold at the mall."

Ordinarily, a small shop owner stocks a store with preselected items from a gift show or works with a local rep to order merchandise. Yohannan, on the other hand, imports huge shipping containers filled with as many as 14,000 different items.  

To give some context, that many pieces could fill his current shop four or five times over. He brings containers in every six weeks, which allows the shop’s stock to remain current and fresh. 

Customer Julie Ades of Short Hills stopped in to pick up a hostess gift. She said, “I always come here for gifts because I know that I’ll find something pretty (and reasonable). And I know that everyone is always thrilled with what I bring.”

With Thanksgiving and the rest of the holiday season fast approaching, Yohannon suggests checking closets and shelves to see which pieces you’ll need to fill in. “It’s best to figure it out before," he said, “but after a party or holiday dinner is good, too. Write down that you’re missing two bowls or need a new serving platter so that you’re not caught short next time.”

At Oven to Table prices, averaging $10 per plate and $7 per bowl and nothing priced over $20, there’s never a need to resort to plastic.