Putting the Bear in Great Barrington

A PITTSFIELD SMOOTHIE ENTREPRENEUR OPENS A SECOND SHOP TO BOOST HIS ALMOND BUTTER BRAND 

By Liam Gorman

From the pages of our May/June 2024 issue.

They call Bear Butter “The Better Butter,” which isn’t just alliterative marketing bluster, according to creator/owner Jon Vella. “When people try it, their faces just light up—they’re just, like, ‘I need four jars!’ ” 

Bear Butter creator/owner Jon Vella stands in front of his new location in Great Barrington with partner Jenn Kamienski. ALLY VONER

How’s that for being passionate about your product? And what exactly is Bear Butter? It’s an almond butter with a host of “superfoods” to make it healthier and tastier. He blends some vegan proteins, cacao, hemp seed, flaxseed, coconut, and goji berries to give it its texture and added nutritional value. “It's a bear of a butter,” Vella says with a laugh. 

Bear Butter has gone beyond the breakfast table and into dinner recipes. It’s been used in brussel sprouts, pad thai, peanut noodles, fluffer nutters. “Eating it with apple slices or just right out of the jar seem to be the most frequent options I hear about,” says Vella. 

Tall, lanky and affable, 29-year-old Vella is hoping Bear Butter can help take his latest venture to the next level. Since 2018, he has owned and operated The Spot, a popular juice, acai bowl and smoothie bar on Tyler Street in Pittsfield. He’s now trying to recreate that magic in Great Barrington, fueled by his “better butter,” calling the new location Bear Butter. 

“It'll be the same operation: smoothies, acai bowls, but we want to highlight Bear Butter,” says Vella. “So that'll be the brand. Most juice bars use the same ingredients, so that's where Bear Butter can differentiate us from the competition.” 

A Mount Greylock graduate, Vella comes from a family of entrepreneurs. His sister is Jessica Rufo, who owns Dottie’s Coffee Lounge and Dorothy’s Estminet in Pittsfield, and his parents own The Brookhouse Sports Pub in Lanesborough. Vella has been an entrepreneur since he can remember. “I was trying to sell gum in middle school,” he jokes. “I kind of always just wanted to be in business, to whatever degree. I didn't know what I was gonna do, but I knew I was gonna do something.” 

After high school, Vella bounced around a bit, studying landscape contracting at UMass until he realized it wasn’t his passion. He then went to Colorado, where his first taste of an acai bowl changed his life forever. “I was, like, what are these things? And I ate them every day for breakfast. And immediately I’m like I can bring this back east,” remembers Vella. 

With the help of his dad, Vella was able to get started at an old Subway Sandwich shop in Pittsfield. With the infrastructure already set up, he was able to get started almost immediately. Things went so well, he decided to give the same concept a shot just outside of Clearwater, Florida, during the winter months. That’s when he came across something called “Energy Balls”—an almond-based treat that was being served at a coffee shop in the same complex he’d opened his Clearwater operation. 

“After a while, I was, like, I can just make these myself. But they didn't hold the shape. They just melted when I put them in the container. But I thought, wow, this is still pretty good while I ate it with a spoon,” laughs Vella. 

It was at this point that Covid struck, so he closed up shop and headed back north with his failed (but delicious) energy ball recipe that was soon to become the scoopable Bear Butter. The Spot in Pittsfield had remained open, so Vella began honing his vision for his new product. Soon enough, he hit the ground running when he and a cohort of friends hustled throughout the Northeast peddling “The Better Butter” at vendor markets. 

“I feel like post-Covid, there was this huge market wave. And we did great at all of the markets,” says Vella. But the moment Vella knew he had something special on his hands was when he set up shop at The Big E in 2022, where they sold nearly 3,000 jars of Bear Butter. “Every type of person from every economic background and everyone was, like, ‘Yo, what is this?’ That's when I realized that it was that universally loved.” 

Originally, every jar of Bear Butter was born in the back of The Spot in Pittsfield, but Vella has recently outsourced the production to a facility in Greenfield where it can be mass-produced to keep up with demand. Jars of Bear Butter can already be found at a host of smaller boutique shops from the Berkshires to Boston, and have also landed on the shelves of major outlets such Big Y and Roche Bros. 

Vella hopes that by creating his own Bear Butter headquarters in Great Barrington, he can bring focus to a product that he thinks has a big future. “Bear Butter is scalable, so it’s sort of bigger picture. Large-scale commercial retail isn’t ideal. Your margins are next to nothing; it's really not designed for the little guy. If we can make a destination where people come because they know they can get it here, maybe we’ll get lines out the door.” 

Similar to his Pittsfield store, the Great Barrington location will be housed in an old Subway Sandwich, this one at 323 Main Street. The infrastructure was mostly intact so operations will run much like they do at The Spot. But unlike The Spot, which caters to a more youthful clientele with spray paint murals and a grittier vibe, the Great Barrington location will be brighter and more welcoming to young families, with a mountainscape mural on the wall, plenty of seating, and Bear Butter menu options. 

“Great Barrington seems more family-oriented—this space is going to be a little more inviting for kids and families to hang out here and not necessarily just a grab-and-go spot,” says Vella’s partner, Jenn Kamienski. 

The couple, who live in Pittsfield, welcomed the birth of their daughter, Veda, last December and hope to integrate their new family life into the businesses. “We can create our own schedules, we can bring her to work, and she can grow up in these places,” says Vella. 

Ultimately, they’re hoping to become a staple in the community, offering a new option for locals, tourists, and foodies alike. Vella, always the entrepreneur, is already starting to think about what’s next. “If we can make Bear Butter become a main focal point here, we'll build up around that and see if Bear Butter shops are really something that can grow beyond the Berkshires.”