Under construction.
The idea of a permanent market like the Green City Market has been floating out there for years without really getting any closer to reality. One reason might be that it’s hard to imagine what it would be like, and why it would improve on the weekly market held on whichever patch of that part of Lincoln Park hasn’t been trampled grassless lately. To answer that sort of question, Wendy Aeschlimann has a piece at The Local Beet about Grand Rapids, Michigan’s upcoming indoor market. One key point is that it’s not only attracting existing local food businesses and farmers— the existence of the market is fostering entirely new ones:
Shelby Kilmer, the former, longtime baker at artisanal powerhouse Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor, will open a bakery, Field & Fire. Other shops joining the market are Simpatico Coffee, a fair-trade and sustainable coffee roaster based in nearby Holland, Love’s, a hand-crafted, boutique ice cream-maker, Aperitivo, a wine and cheese bar, Old World Olive Press, an olive oil purveyor, and a gourmet kettle corn shop. Fritz said that they are close to announcing the name of the brewery, and says that it’s an established brewery with a “new concept in brewing.” Aperitivo, which will operate a retail cheese shop as well as a wine bar, is working with local creameries such as Dancing Goat Creamery in Byron Center, Evergreen Lane in Fennville, and Zingerman’s from Ann Arbor.
