RSS FeedPenn Quarter Bodega Neighborhood Grocery
How do you feel about a grocery store for Penn Quarter residents and owned & operated by Penn Quarter residents?
Penn Quarter Bodega Neighborhood Grocery is the brainchild of Mather Studios resident June Blanks. She began planning the concept a year ago and then left a career of National Sustainability Policy to change the food system on a more local level in Penn Quarter. Her food outlet will do more than bring groceries to this otherwise food desert as it is designed to create a community.
The Bodega is partnering with local farmers for fresh foods and with residents and businesses to seek input about what the community wants in a grocer and how the Bodega can give back visibly to the community. The group is planning a series of Neighborhood Meet-Ups over the next six weeks to get a better understanding of what the residents of Penn Quarter want and need.
The Bodega plans on opening a storefront in Penn Quarter in early 2012, with the exact location TBD. The model for the retail outlet and gathering place is a compact, urban grocery store with a full range of products, including fruits, vegetables, meats, local brands, favorite brands, prepared foods, regional wine and beer, and general/household products, complete with a communal table to have a cup of coffee or read the paper.
More information on the grocery and meet-ups can be found on www.PennQuarterBodega.com. The Bodega also has a Facebook page.
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Comments
What a great idea! Local and organic foods would be such a welcome change from the Safeway over on 5th! Thank you 
This is so great – I can. not. wait. to make this my main source for food shopping… local, local, local and healthier too! COUNT ME IN!!!
This is June Blanks, owner/resident. Thanks everyone for your enthusiasm! I look forward to meeting you as this business moves forward. One of the biggest reasons I started the Bodega is how much I enjoy knowing my neighbors in the middle of our urban neighborhood and my desire to design a place that is really about living down here. Thanks for the comments!! (@ Cheryl, not a co-op, just community driven : )
The optimist in me says “GREAT”.
The pessimist in me says…”Fool me once, shame on you….Fool me 7 times, shame on me….”
If this is near the Gallery Place portion of Penn Quarter you can count on me giving you large amounts of my money.
This neighborhood so needs what June Blanks is planning. I want to do anything I can to support her and encourage her!
We are desperate for a place to buy fresh food in this neighborhood. CVS just doesn’t cut it and the Safeway has been a major disappointment and is too far for a quick pick-up without a car.
June has a great workable idea. I live at 9th and G and I cook! Getting food to prepare a meal at home without a car has been my biggest challenge.
Please go heavy on the take-away (sandwiches)! I need somewhere for lunch around my office. You can only afford teaism so many times.
This is an amazing idea! I live in Penn Quarter and know how desperately our neighborhood needs a grocery store. Farmers’ Market once a week with limited supplies and very high prices is definitely not enough to meet the needs of the neighborhood for fresh groceries. I’ve been wondering for a while when someone is going to recognize tremendous potential in this area and start this kind of business in Penn Quarter, and I’m so excited that this wonderful initiative belongs to our neighbor June Blanks. I’ll definitely be a regular customer and a very active supporter of Penn Quarter Bodega. Thank you, June!
I prefer local and organic, but I don’t even care if I can walk to it! The Safeway is too far away (from the Artisan condo). I would say please target the gaps in the neighborhood stores. That means limited baked goods (Paul, Red Velvet, etc. have that covered), takeout (we have soooo much of that), and cheese (Cowgirl Creamery). But I can’t get fresh produce except for on Thursdays, or fresh meat at all, on foot. And ecofriendly toiletries would be awesome. You don’t need to compete with other neighborhood businesses, just complement them!
Hi, I’m very excited for a place where I can get all of my groceries in PQ. A salad/sandwich bar would be great too!
This is fantastic! We live in the Clara Barton and will definitely shop at the bodega. We’ll get the word out to all residents of both the Clara & the LaFayette.
I would say that the theme we should be going for is the New York City style community groccery – they are all over New York and are wonderful, wonderful places. My favorite (not “community owned” – but very New York and the best there is) – is Fairway Grocery (http://www.fairwaymarket.com/). At a minimum though, it should be a place that has a butcher with high quality meat, the ability to customize, and a diversity of offerings(a real butcher, not someone standing behind a meat counter that has no clue what he’s selling (which is low quality to begin with) and don’t think about asking them to cut a steak to order, or order ahead for a nice lamb neck, braciole, or other interesting/non-standard cut of meat, because you’ll just be greeted with a black stare and a ‘duh, uh, hmm, what?”), fresh produce, a variety of offerings (some cheap, some high end), fresh pasta and sauces, bread, a deli, prepared food of high quality/fresh, perhaps an in store New York style deli, wide selection of cheese, – again think New York New York New York – if recent history has proven anything it is that DC residents are now upper class, professional, and numerous, and such a store would not only be sustained in DC but thrive. A type of place that you could go to get a hoagie on the go, fresh made, or pick up a pound of high end tellagio or fontina cheese, or fresh made ricotta cheese, some fresh tagliatell pasta, fresh vegetables that aren’t just your standard varieties, a prepared braciole, nice veal chops, etc….
Oh yes, a butcher! Please please please!! A real butcher with different cuts of meat that can do cuts to order, that knows what they are talking about! Through in fresh bread, cheese, fresh produce, and prepared take-away meals/hoagies and you have no idea how successful you will be! Please Please please have real butcher!!
I support your efforts June. Your bodega would be a convenient healthy solution to the problem of no fresh food for home cooks in Penn Quarter. I am so looking forward to the day you are open for business.
Congratulations June for this successful idea finally turning into reality! I’m a fellow Mathers Studio resident and I can’t wait to have Bodega around us. As others have said- a REAL BUTCHER is much needed! Unfortunately getting good quality meats in DC is a major hassle- going all the way up to Wagshal’s def. not convenient for those of us without a car. Also, fresh and local produce will be in order Also, great idea turning the Bodega in a communal table coffee/lunch place. Good luck with the rest of the execution!
100% with you Cristina! The only thing I’d add is that with 10,000+ residents in our area, a booming night life (bars, theaters (movie and play), clubs, restaurants, etc.) that bring thousands more to PQ at night, plenty of people who live in the ‘hood but who don’t work here (many of whom don’t get home until 8 PM or later)or get out of work late and want to grab something before trecking home, and places like Merzi, Luke’s, Hill Country, Mings, Jackie’s, et al proving that late night places not only work but THRIVE, let’s not think “communal table/coffee/lunch place” – let’s think “communal table/coffee/lunch/light dinner/late night” place. Again think New York, nothing is better than coming home from a stressful day of work, or a late night going out, to come back to your hood and grab a delicious, quick, relatively in-expensive, on the go (or quick sit down) coffee, sandwich, soup (pretty much every bodega in NYC has this and I think it would do gang busters here). For those of you that say “but DC isn’t NYC” – while true, it just means we can’t have the saturation NYC has, not that we can’t have at least 1 in an area that is substantively similar. Just look at all the NYC style places and late night places in PQ that are PACKED, THRIVING, at dinner time and late night and we definitely have a need for a deli type place for dinner and late night – too many lunch only places (e.g. potato value, which I literally live right on top of but have never been too because they, for someone unknown reason, contrary to the many succesful places around them that are open late night, are only open for lunch – so it might as well be vacant from my standpoint)leave resident options after 5 to either a $20+ meal or McDonald’s/Chipotle – thank God we have the other places I mentioned above (Ming’s, Merzi, Luke’s, etc.) but a deli for dinner/late night? Now we’re talking!!! And like I said, small deli’s and bodega’s go like hand in glove.
This would be a great way to fill the old SoHo on 9th and E. That is, if Flip Burger (or whomever is looking at it) decides not to pursue it.
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Love it!