Folks in the Tangletown area will be pleased to know that the new 56th Street Market (2201 N 56th St.) is scheduled to open some time in mid-January. Although a date hasn’t yet been finalized, owners PJ and Sami told me that once the liquor license is approved and the shelving is up, they’ll only need a week to stock the the new store.
Speaking of shelves, Sami and PJ were working on shelving assembly today when I stopped by to take a quick peek. The store’s yellow and orange tiled floors have been stripped clean, giving the store a bright and cheery look. Sami told me that they plan to stock the Amy’s product line and other organic foods, along with a small produce section. “We’ll carry items much like what you’ll find at Whole Foods, but on a smaller scale,” he added.
The store will also have a mixture of regular grocery items, from fresh bread to dairy from Smith Brothers Farms. When I asked about a deli counter, he said they wouldn’t have one at first, but might consider it down the road, though it wouldn’t be predominantly featured in the middle of the store. Beer and wine will be available for sale, though Sami said they will not carry any sort of “high-octane” beverages.
Store hours will be 7am-10pm Monday-Saturday; and Sunday from 8am-9pm. An official Grand Opening will be held at the end of January, we’ll announce the details about that and the “soft opening” date as soon as we get them.
Great news and alot of us are looking forward to the Grand Opening.
I’m glad to hear we have a convenience store coming back. I hope they have a more realistic stock than Meridian Market did. I know there were a lot of economic factors outside of their control but that it was a place stocking six different kinds of organic root beer but not a single bag of Frito-Lay chips didn’t really help, I’m sure.
Just to keep things balanced, I’d like to offer a counter-opinion to Tom’s… We stopped going to Meridian Market because we felt that the stock had finally declined to the quality of a typical urban convenience store. Towards the end, basically all you could buy were Saltines and Spaghetti-O’s, and that’s not what my family wants from a neighborhood market. In my opinion, you can get FritoLay corn chips at the 7-Eleven or 50th St Market/Deli or a number of other places that are within a few blocks of Tangletown.
Everything in balance, of course, but I’m hoping this new place leans more towards the Whole-Food-sy rather than the FritoLay side of things. I think it’s a great sign that they are not stocking crappy high-octane drinks, by the way!
High quality foods and low octane beverages sound like a winning combination. I hope this new store will be a return to the practices that make for a true neighborhood business.
Many of us remember with fondness M&R Produce run at that crossroads by George Le Blanc until nearly ten years ago. George kept quality high and prices low. He tended his veggies and fruit with a caring hand. He and his crew knew our names and remembered our preferences. It was a small store but it carried what we needed. Some of us shopped daily and chatted with our neighbors over the produce bins and in front of the ice cream coolers. The place that M&R had in our neighborhood was brought home to us when 9/11 occurred and we no longer had M&R to go to.
We look forward to visiting the 56th Street Market. See you there.
I’m with abigail. The return of something like M&R produce will be a wonderful thing to have back in Tangletown. George even had clipboards hanging behind the register where you ran a tab that you paid off monthly (weekly? I can’t remember now).
Anon,
I get that nobody wants another 7-11 but half the traffic stores like that take in are the “I just need to grab X” type of customers. If I needed to get a forgotten ingredient/snack on game day I was out of luck. If my niece or I wanted a Dr Pepper on my way home (I don’t stock soda) then I was out of luck. If I wanted cat food I was out of luck.
If I want a Whole Foods I’ll drive 5 minutes up the road and go to Whole Foods. My problem with Meridian Market it that is was a convenience store that wasn’t very convenient.
I don’t want a convenience store – I want a grocery store. When I “just need to grab x”, it’s things like a package of pasta or some half and half or an onion. And I want the things I grab to be of the same quality as the things I go to My regular grocery store (Metropolitan Market, fwiw).
I look over this and say “no wonder M&R went out of business”.
You guys know that regular groceries on the shelf make a net profit margin of under 5% right? The only way stores make it to a healthy profit margin is by selling high profit items, like prepared foods (old burritos under a heated lamp), energy drinks, bakery items, fountain drinks OR items that bring in large numbers like alcohol.
Regardless of their intention, I think it’s safe to bet they will shift toward convenience with a healthy mix of what I just listed or go out of business.
But that’s just what my crystal ball says. We’ll find out in a year and it’ll make a great blog post that we’ll all eagerly comment on just like this one.
I find it funny that so many still refer to this neighborhood as Tangletown. Being in this area for as long as i have, i remember M & R. I also remember the State Farm insurance office that was there before George. Then there was Rex Jordans Texaco station where the Bee Hive is now and the Butcher Shop that was connected to my fathers grocery store, Lamont’s Food Center, which btw was never located in Tangletown, but the Meridan District.. Good luck to the 56th street market and welcome to the neighborhood, whatever we call it.
I loved John’s father’s store, Lamont’s, which was not in a place called Tangletown. I fondly remember the big wheel of cheese that he would give us samples of everytime we went in. He also delivered groceries for those who walked to the store and couldn’t carry everything home. I liked the butcher shop too. My grandparents adpoted a dog that hung out at Rex’s Texaco. And dont’t forget Brigg’s Pharmacy’s original location that became a fashion school. That corner has a lot of history.