By
Linda Jarrett
When you’re the only game in town, popularity comes easy. So
it is with downtown’s only grocery store to date, City Grocers.
For the last two years, City Grocers has provided the usual
and unusual to City dwellers from the ground floor of the Bell
Lofts Building, 920 Olive Street.
Wanting to expand on this success and provide their customers
with more of what they’ve become used to, this unique market
will move down the street this fall to The Syndicate Building
at 10th Street and Olive.
City Grocers will be the first retail tenant in the sixteen-story,
mixed-use redevelopment project by a St. Louis company, LoftWorks,
and Minneapolis-based Sherman Associates. The $85 million project
will feature 102 condominiums, 70 apartments and 20,000 square
feet of retail space.
To understand the market’s attraction, one only has to join
the lunch crowd. Construction workers and business-types stand
elbow to elbow at the deli counter ordering sandwiches such
as the tried and true Reuben, to City Grocers specials like
“The Loop” or “The Old Town Updated.”
Rance Baker, co-owner with Craig Heller of LoftWorks, describes
the store as a “true crossover market” in that it supplies a
little of everything that downtown loft-dwelling denizens might
need, including natural and organic selections, plus an array
of conventional foods.
One has only to peruse the shelves to get the idea. Specialty
olive oils, spices, vinegars and pastas can be found along with
toilet paper and bath soap. Slices of calorie-laden desserts
beckon from the deli counter just down from the mango chicken
salad.
“The store is designed in the direction a lot of people are
heading,” Baker says. “They want good quality food, but don’t
want to go to a restaurant and don’t have time to prepare it
themselves. People can either come in and have the entire meal
ready to go, or they can pick up a piece of meat, poultry or
fish, take some sides and go back home to prepare the meal.”
Many describe the market as “European” or “New York Style” in
that many of the City Grocer regulars shop on a daily basis,
depending on their needs of the day.
“We see some of our consumers three times a day,” Baker says.
“The shopper in our store is not going to be shopping for the
week. We don’t even have grocery carts, although we’ll probably
put a few small ones in our new store.”
Other additions will be an in-house butcher, a juice bar, salad
bar, an expanded hot food and hot soup section, plus an increased
inventory of wine selections. Wine and cooking classes might
also an option on the horizon.
Downtown residents will also have another need fulfilled. A
pharmacy.
“We’re going to provide that,” Baker says, “Besides getting
their prescriptions filled and buying the medications they are
used to, they will find homeopathic and alternative medications.
More and more people are moving to preventative rather than
reactive care.
“Our consumer seems to be young professionals, young couples,
empty nesters and singles,” Baker says. “And while there aren’t
a lot of kids running around, we do have college students because
of the lofts.”
He says that he has seen a new segment in their clientele in
the two years that City Grocers has been in operation. “This
new segment is more food conscious, more food savvy. They know
about the Food Channel, they want to know more about what they’re
eating, where it’s grown, and consequently our natural food
selection has grown.”
City Grocers serves lunch and dinner on the mezzanine and this
too will be expanded in their new location.
Other changes will be the hours which will extend past 9 p.m.
before the move. The employee count of 32 will go to 64— the
better to serve the space which will also double from 6,500
to 15,000 square feet. Dimensions have yet to be decided, Baker
says.
While he admits that City Grocer didn’t make a profit for the
first 15 months, Baker said he knew that when he opened the
doors, expansion was inevitable. “We knew that it would grow
and evolve as more and more people moved downtown.
Mike Kociela, owner of Entertainment Saint Louis, lives and
works downtown, and patronizes the market on a regular basis.
“We eat there three to four times a week and shop there as we
needed we don’t stock up, we go there and purchase a meal, or
the ingredients for a meal or the ingredients that we need.
We don’t have to do the big grocery haul like you do in the
county!”
Brian Gorecki, project manager for the Syndicate Building, says
this was his first association with City Grocers “other than
buying my coffee in the morning. But I love what they do. I
think they have a great concept and I don’t think St. Louis
realizes how lucky they are to have a very high quality urban
grocer.”
St. Louis-based BSI is the contractor for the building. Gorecki
says plans had not been finalized yet, so any comment on the
project would be premature.
The project, as with much of the downtown projects, is using
affordable tax exempt bonds for a funding mechanism, Gorecki
says. “We will have market rate apartments and condos on the
ninth to 11th floor, plus two-story penthouses on the 15th and
16th floors.”
While the walls will be new, the ambiance will be the same,
retaining the same urban look created by Baker. Trivers and
Associates and The Lawrence Group will also be involved in the
renovation.
Baker says that he hoped to keep the moving and renovation costs
“under a million.”
He harbors no illusions about the business. “It’s still a fragile
market downtown. You have the pioneers coming down and opening
up businesses, and I want to take my hat off to these guys.
They’re moving into this area and, through them, hopefully we
will draw other people to move in and open businesses.”
“We don’t have that exponential growth and retail yet, but it
will happen,” he says. “This is the place that I want to go
to, even if it’s a gradual process.”
Gorecki says that the business has attracted the attention of
other metropolitan areas including Memphis, Kansas City and
Louisville who are looking at City Grocers as a possible model
for similar businesses in their own downtown.
What is it they say about imitation?
