An artisanal butcher shop is planned at 720 East Market Street, directly west of the Green Building, that should fit in well with Gill and Augusta Brown Holland’s planned permanent food market directly behind the building. The yet-to-be-named shop will open in 2013, according to a Business First report, and will feature an “old-fashioned” design where wholesale and retail cuts of locally raised and slaughtered meat can be purchased. The effort is a project of Gill and Augusta, Tim Peters, Lois Mateus, Laura Lee Brown, and Steve Wilson.
Founder and Editor at Broken Sidewalk
Branden founded Broken Sidewalk in 2008 while practicing architecture in Louisville. He continued the site for seven years while living in New York City, returning to Louisville in 2016. Branden is a graduate of the College of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, and has covered architecture, design, and urbanism for The Architect's Newspaper, Designers & Books, Inhabitat, and the American Institute of Architects.
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I hope they leave the old graphic on the side of the building.
Hm, this is disappointing. Making NuLu more classist by integrating (all speculative) expensive butcher meats to the area. Why not an affordable market with a selection of inexpensive veggies, meats, and other “convenience” items? (I guess because this might bring in low income people to the area, and that would really kill the vibe on Market St.). This isn’t really helpful to people living in the area and it further separates NuLu from the common people as a bit pompous, elitist, with this “artisanal” pontification. I guess it could be another overpriced restaurant striving for mediocrity like the rest that have recently opened up on this strip of Market (taco punk excluded).
I pray that I’m mistaken, and I hope when it finally opens I don’t find myself staring at the exploitation of being “green” and paying $15/lb for “local” cured, honey-glazed slices of ham.
Kevin,
If you love Taco Punk, then you obviously read Gabe’s response to the UofL Cardinal reviewer in which he clearly spelled out why his product costs as much as it does. Let me save you (and other’s who may not have seen it) the trouble:
” Our protein selections from family farmers are priced at two to three times what the commercial equivalent sells for. How is this possible? The Federal Farm Bill. If you don’t know it by now, agribusiness has bought our government lock stock and barrel. The farm bill is written every year to favor huge industrial giants like Cargill, Perdue, and Monsanto. Corn, wheat and soy beans are subsidized so heavily that they sell for far less than what it costs to produce. What do most industrial factory farms feed their animals? Corn, soy, and wheat. Thus, any food service operation that chooses to use conventional sources of protein offers prices that are artificially low. If you would like for my prices to drop, pick up the phone or write a letter to Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell and tell them you want family farmers to be included in the Federal Farm Bill. Let me know how far you get.”
American’s eat too much meat because it’s cheap. It’s cheap because it’s subsidized and produced in such a way that’s harmful to the environment and the human body.
You’d do better to give up buying fast food or purchasing cheap ground beef at Kroger and just get three protein servings a week at this new place. It’ll be better for your health, and you’ll be supporting local a local business and the producers..@Kevin –
I share Kevin’s sentiments, and I do not eat fast food. I am also a vegetarian, so I don’t eat cheap meat. Matthew, I think you make a GREAT point about backwards food policies in Kentucky, but you also missed Kevin’s point altogether. We want more access in our neighborhood to AFFORDABLE, fresh, and healthy food. With my salary, I cannot patron the businesses on E. Market St. and have come to believe words like ‘local’ ‘green’ and ‘artisanal’ are euphemisms for high-priced products that only a certain socio-economic status can afford.
This is very good news indeed. I hope that the food market mentioned opens soon as well.
This reminds me of the Portlandia episode about returning to the 1890’s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPKe9OfWs-M
Although it is easy to decry any upper-crust addition to the area, this shop would complement the existing East Market businesses well. The neighborhood does lack access to a proper grocery, but it is doubtful that this store would carry nothing that would interest locals (or nothing that they could afford!) And advertising fair prices on ground chuck does not exactly make for a big pre-opening buzz.
This is a proposed retail business, near downtown, in an otherwise empty building. If their concept works, perhaps they will diversify their offerings to include more modestly priced goods. Or, failing that, a competitor might. How can more opportunity to bring people downtown to spend their money be a bad thing?
I agree with Ferrante; Let us not judge this particular book by its (not very clear) cover. I will say that Gill Holland is a shrewd businessman, and he wouldn’t be working on this project if he didn’t think it would benefit the area.
Morgan & Kevin, you are missing the point. Fresh and local are almost mutually exclusive of affordable. That fact is beyond a single business’ control.
I also cannot, for the life of me, understand the complaints of a private business filling a vacant space. Would you prefer the space stand vacant? Would you prefer a discount operation that cannot generate the revenue required for maintaining an old building, ultimately resulting in the building’s demise? I see local shops and restaurants, such as these, sustaining market-rate housing and generating a true urban, mixed-income area. A critical mass of these shops can raise the income and education level of an area and provide opportunities for people otherwise without hope. Welfare, public houseing, and food stamps play an important role in society – but ultimately should not be the end goal.
So, I understand that a number of the current residents in the area cannot afford an upscale shop. I cannot understand why you would prefer no shop at all. I cannot understand why you would prefer parts of the city sit in near ruin. The area’s residents will fail to benefit by keeping the area poor in the same way they will fail to benefit from rising rents.
“You’d do better to give up buying fast food or purchasing cheap ground beef at Kroger and just get three protein servings a week at this new place. It’ll be better for your health, and you’ll be supporting local a local business and the producers”- thanks for pegging me down, Matthew. I’m going to put your advice into practice ASAP.
David, to answer your questions.
“Would you prefer the space stand vacant? “- No.
“Would you prefer a discount operation that cannot generate the revenue required for maintaining an old building, ultimately resulting in the building’s demise?” -No.
I’m very excited about the ongoing efforts to revitalize the Nulu (Phoenix Hill / Butchertown) area of East Downtown – and I welcome this new business. Sooooo sick of people wining about the A-word: Affordable…it always means bad news. There is nothing wrong with having a population that makes more money based on hard work, nor is there anything wrong with specialty businesses which cater to that population by offering more than what you can just pick up at (affordable) Wal-Mart. The foot of (affordable) Wayside is no longer on the throat of the neigborhood, and (affordable) Clarksdale has long been a thing of the past. Just coincidence that this has become the hottest neighborhood in town?
I would like a super market just as much as the next Nulu resident, but First Link, Webb’s, and Freddie’s will work in a pinch (RIP Bodega). It would have been nice if Creation Gardens wouldn’t have bailed on the project at Shelby and Market…guess you can’t win ’em all…
Now if I can only get this (affordable?) captcha right…
So, what happened?