The KitchenAid stand mixer.

"I have a KitchenAid mixer," Galloway resident Laura Hickman said proudly. "If my house catches fire, it goes out with my children."

Andrea Ratulowski of Hilliard has had a KitchenAid -- in cobalt blue -- for three years.

"My husband bought it for me when I threatened to stop making cookies," she said.

The baking/cooking staple -- one of the most-requested items on bridal registries, according to Amazon.com -- has been made in Ohio for 90 years.

Greenville, a quintessential Midwestern town about 100 miles west of Columbus, is home not only to the factory that makes the mixer but also to a one-of-a-kind store: KitchenAid Experience, opened in 2001.

When company officials decided to build a new plant in Greenville in the 1990s, they also built the store -- to sell new and refurbished appliances and cookware, offer cooking demonstrations and house a museum of the brand's early mixers.

"There is this love affair with the mixer," said Brian Maynard, director of marketing for KitchenAid in St. Joseph, Mich. "Consumers wanted to have a place to meet the brand."

The shop, said retail manager Gloria Keller-Brinley, has become a destination., with folks from as far away as the United Kingdom having visited.

For groups of eight or more, Keller-Brinley plans a hands-on cooking class that includes making (from scratch) apple dumplings -- using KitchenAid equipment, of course.

The group then gets a tour of the museum, a chance to shop and, if desired, a tour of the factory.

Cooking demonstrations aren't limited to tours. Every morning at 10:30, an employee or a hired chef whips up something in the store kitchen. The public can browse the store and the museum.

"They can't believe there are so many colors in the stand mixer," Keller-Brinley said.

KitchenAid, owned by Whirlpool, makes the stand mixer in 50 hues and finishes as well as different sizes, Maynard said.

To celebrate the brand's milestone anniversary this year, the company released a limited- edition candy-apple-red mixer with a glass bowl, available at the store, at retailers such as Williams-Sonoma and at the company's online store (www.shop kitchenaid.com).

The most popular colors? The company won't release specific numbers, but Keller-Brinley's best sellers are black, white, metallic chrome and red in the artisan line -- a 5-quart tilt-head model.

Another popular feature of the store is the refurbished equipment, including stand mixers.

When a customer returns a mixer, Maynard said, it is sent back to the Greenville factory, where it is taken apart; fixed, if needed; and, "assuming it's in very perfect condition," packaged in a generic box and resold for about half the original cost of $199 to $399.

With the downturn in the economy, Maynard said, he has seen an uptick in the sale of refurbished mixers.

And overall business at the Experience has been brisk, Keller-Brinley said

"Since the economy has been the way it has been, we've seen a lot of younger people," she said. "They're changing their lifestyle. The couple will say, 'We're going to cook more at home.'  "

Whirlpool as a whole, however, has seen a drop in revenue. The company announced in August that it will close its Evansville, Ind., plant -- where some of the refrigerators are made -- eliminating 1,100 jobs.

Although the Experience store sells all of the KitchenAid counter appliances and cookware -- from blenders and toasters to skillets and pots -- the mixer remains its unmistakable hallmark.

"You'd be hard-pressed to find any restaurant kitchen without one," Maynard said.

The mixer is also on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Julia Child's kitchen and was a staple on the set of Friends.

Its silhouette has changed little since the 1930s. In fact, the shape itself has been trademarked and is part of the company's logo.

"KitchenAid has two flagship products: the mixer and the dishwasher," Maynard said.

"But KitchenAid wouldn't be so successful without the mixer."

robin.davis@dispatch.com