While its not on their blog yet, Byrd House Market manager Anna Edwards has confirmed that the Byrd House Market farmer’s market, using a mixture of funding from the William Byrd Foundation, federal grants, crowdsourcing, and their own produce proceeds, has purchased the Fine Foods convenience store on Idlewood.
“We wanted to create a ‘game-changer’ for Richmond farmers markets in order to further our mission of providing living laboratories for learning nutrition, ecology and economics.” said Edwards. She alluded to a not-yet-announced partnership with another grocery enterprise to help run the new store/market.
Though a lot of details have not been settled, some things are becoming clear- the farmer’s market with outside vendors will eventually move from their current location near the Grace Arents Community Garden to one side of the Fine Foods building and possibly be open everyday to sell fresh produce. (This is where the Fancy Flea market was held previously.) The Fine Foods building itself will go through a major overhaul. There’s discussion of adding a whole floor to the building and doing significant landscaping changes to the asphalt parking lot area. Solar panels and/or green roof are part of that. A portion of the building will be reserved for gardening and community workshops. The grocery shelves will gradually become more oriented to natural/healthy/gourmet.
Perhaps of more interest to current Fine Foods patrons, the new business will, at least in the beginning, retain the employees of Fine Foods to sell selections from their expanded beer fridge as well as lottery tickets.
