A unique, full-service grocery store is coming to Lafayette Square. Fields Foods is currently under construction at 1500 Lafayette Ave., next to Walgreens at the intersection of Lafayette Avenue and Truman Parkway, and is slated to open January 2014. Part of a $120 million redevelopment of the former City Hospital site, Fields Foods will stock a vast selection of locally grown food and popular brands. It also will offer a one-of-a-kind shopping experience through the interior design and decor of the 37,000-square-foot space.
As Fields Foods co-founders Chris Goodson and Jeffrey Randol explained, residents of nearby Lafayette Square, Soulard and LaSalle currently have limited options when finding a full-service grocery store, particularly one with an extensive selection of local products. Fields Foods, they said, will be the only full-service food shopping experience available to the neighborhood within a two-mile radius. Goodson and Randol also hope the store’s proximity to major highways will attract customers entering or leaving downtown St. Louis.
The store will feature extensive retail space, a sit-down wine and beer bar, and distinct areas for fresh seafood, cheese, meat, prepared foods and more. While locally grown food can sometimes come at a steeper price, Goodson and Randol hope to keep their inventory affordable through high-volume purchases Fields Foods will make from small- and medium-sized farms that practice sustainable methods. Randol noted education is an important component to Fields Foods’ mission. Products will be marked to indicate local, gluten-free, organic, non-genetically modified and other attributes.
“We’ll have the amenities of a grocery store, but we want to make the experience different,” said Randol. Each food area will be framed in its own decor. For example, the dairy section will be painted to appear as a window with a view of a pasture. A prepared foods section stocked with brick-oven pizzas, paninis and other sandwiches will feel like “a village within the store,” said Randol. In the wine bar area, Fields Foods plans to offer wine dinners, featuring a menu prepared by its executive chef Kurt Von Der Haar and beverages paired by its on-site sommelier. The Fields Foods experience extends all the way to concierge service. Thirsty for a glass of wine? Relax at the wine bar and hand your shopping list to one of the grocery’s employees.
When doors open Jan. 4, Fields Foods will operate daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fields Foods is expected to add approximately 100 full- and part-time jobs to St. Louis.
This article appears in October 2013.