Glen’s Garden Market: A Grocery Blooms in Dupont

From Melanie Hudson. Email her at melanie[AT]borderstan.com. 

New farm fresh market to open spring 2013.

It has been a long two years for residents on the north and west sides of Borderstan looking for last minute fixings for dinner. Since the Townhouse (“Secret”) Safeway at Florida and 20h Street closed, Dupont residents have been out of luck.

There has been Safeway on 17th Street in a pinch – but when what you really need is that organic ingredient, super-fresh produce or a particular specialty item, Whole Foods was a time consuming trek in a time crunch.

Next spring our long yuppie nightmare will end with the opening of Glen’s Garden Market in the former Secret Safeway space in Dupont Circle (2001 S Street NW). Proprietor Danielle Vogel will bring seasonal and sustainable produce, meats, dairy, beers and wine and specialty foods straight from the Chesapeake Bay watershed to our dinner tables. Her goal is to source products only from farms and chefs in the immediate DMV area as well as West Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New York – tasting every product as she goes.

Danielle has spent several years developing relationships with local farmers who produce the types of small batch products, most often without huge production facilities, that she hopes to feature at Glen’s and has tasted her fair share of jellies, jams and mustards. All this research will pay off for customers in the form of a “full time farmer’s market in a grocery store.”

The market will also feature a beer and wine bar, showcasing the regional breweries and wineries that consistently bring home the gold in competition, and a communal space for enjoying our region’s best products in the store with friends.

A former Borderstan resident who has lived in the DC area for a decade, Danielle knows the neighborhood and clientele well, and even has done her own stint in the government like many of us. Though she is a first-time business owner, she is excited to join the generations of entrepreneurs in her family, and feels like this is something she has been waiting to do her whole life. That passion for food and family shows: Glen’s Garden Market is named after her father, Glen, who passed away in 2002.

We think her future is bright. Keep track of the store’s progress on the Facebook page and count down the days until we bring local local.

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