Courtesy of Pine Street Market
Rusty Bowers, the owner of Pine Street Market, is teaming up with Riverview Farms to open Atlanta’s first farmer-owned butcher shop in Grant Park. Even though the final location is undecided, Bowers hopes to be open by the first of next year. The store will offer an extensive selection of meat, produce, and products from other local producers such as Doux South, Global Growers, and Sweet Grass Dairy. “It’s a closed loop,” says Bowers. “You’ll walk in and realize there are no other hands on this meat. That’s such a beautiful thing to me.”
The market will be at least 2,000-square feet and feature a patio equipped with a Big Green Egg. In addition to the butcher shop, Bowers and Swancy want to offer grab-and-go items, tastings, and classes. They also hope to host pop-up dinners with local chefs such as Ryan Smith of Staplehouse and Terry Koval of Wrecking Bar. “Atlanta has such wonderful friendships between chefs, growers, and producers, and we want to help celebrate that,” Bowers says.
Bowers has worked with Riverview Farms since opening Pine Street Market in 2008, but he wants to help showcase local farmers on a larger platform. “Now that we both have a wonderful infrastructure in place, the next step is opening a high-end store that people can come to from all over Atlanta,” he says. “We want it to be a little culinary, meat driven mecca.”
Charlotte Swancy of Riverview Farms wanted to open in Grant Park because it was an up-and-coming area, but also because she has many, established customers in the area. “That area has given us a lot of support for the farm and our products since we began,” she says.
