As more quality, local products hit the market, it’s hard to squeeze them all into a 600-square-foot store. But in December, when Local Harvest Grocery moves a few storefronts north to 3108 Morgan Ford Road near Arsenal Street (the grocery is currently at 3148 Morgan Ford Road), there will be three-times the current space to stock a growing variety of fresh meats, dairy, produce and other local products. “We’ll be able to carry more farmers and greater variety. We’re pretty excited about it,” said Maddie Earnest, who owns Local Harvest Grocery and Local Harvest Café and Catering along with her business partner, Patrick Horine.
The new store will have nine refrigerators instead of the current three, enabling the grocery to carry several types of local, organic brands of milk and an expanded selection of meats and cheeses. There will also be an entire area dedicated to prepared foods from the grocery’s sister establishment, Local Harvest Café, in addition to the hummus, veggies and dips that are currently available from the café. The new produce area will be larger as well, as will the beer and wine offerings. “We will even have little shopping carts with wheels. We’re big time now!” Earnest quipped.
Earnest and Horine will be transforming the current Local Harvest Grocery space for use in their catering business. “We get requests and we can’t fill them because the café kitchen is too small,” explained Earnest. They will also use the space to fill subscriptions to their Community-Supported Agriculture weekly harvest and hope by next spring to increase the number of subscriptions they can fill. Their weekly harvest includes omnivore and vegetarian options, as well as prepared food from the café.
This article appears in Sep 1-30, 2010.