Messy and Picky

The old location of Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal closed down on Saturday. It was a bittersweet moment for the gang who worked that day as the spot we've had for the last 2+ years has served us well and sometimes annoyed us to the verge of tears.

Genevieve and I closed up one last time and hit the lights on the end of an era. There were lots of regulars coming in sad to hear we'd be closed for a few days, but eagerly awaiting the new space along the 12th St windows offering up over twice the square footage.

Sunday rolled around and I got to sleep in since we were closed. Off to the market I went at 10.30a when we started taking the place apart. Baskets had to be culled, the produce ark was taken apart for reuse (Joe the Contractor is reusing a ton of stuff from the old farmstand and elsewhere in the new build). In the shot above is Farmstand Manager Sarah Cain cleaning the ark and you can see the piles and piles of baskets we went through.

We had to put up some apple crate barriers as people kept on coming over to ask for eggs or milk or ask where the food was. Does this scene look like there's a place open for business in it? Oh silly customers

Here's our Product Manager Emily Gunther looking tiny and forlorn in the produce ark-less space.

The awesome RTM crew made short work of the stuff we couldn't reuse for the new farmstand. Cue forklift! They used their brains before using their muscle, John Sebastian said.

So that was then and this is what is to come. Here's a shot of the new space taken on Friday.

Another shot from Saturday. The new space has twice the refrigerator space, twice the freezer space and tons more room for a larger variety of produce, meats and dairy.

Here's a shot from Sunday of the in-progress new space. Longtime staffer Colleen cleaned more wicker baskets than she cares to ever see again in her life. See that paint job on the wood? That's homemade milk paint made with week old raw milk which would've been poured down the drain.

We'll be re-opening Wednesday at 8am so come on by to the 12th St location. Please excuse all the kinks we'll undoubtedly be working out; it'll all be new to us. We're in the old Rick's Steaks spot one stall down from The Rib Stand. Here's a diagram to help you out.

And here's a link to a flickr set with more Fair Food Farmstand move photos.

Fair Food Farmstand
Tu – Sat: 8a – 6p
Su: 9a – 5p
Mon: Closed, but starting October 5, 8a – 6p
215.627.2029
Reading Terminal Market
12th & Arch Sts

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 at 8:41 am and is filed under Announcements, Reading Terminal Market. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.