Chef William Morgan fills the cold bar for lunch at the new Grocery Bar on July 2, 2014 which opened on the Southside in the former Enzo’s Market location.The food stations are packed and the parking lot is full, as hungry Southside residents crowd in to sample the prepared foods dreamed up by Daniel Lindley, the former head chef at St. John’s Restaurant.
Lindley hopes that by offering top-end restaurant quality food at one-third of the price, consumers will flock to the 16,000-square-foot Southside market, which is now less a traditional grocery store and more a series of stations offering food that can either be eaten immediately or taken home and cooked.
“It’s going to take a lot of local support,” he said. “There is buying power with these local foods, and that’s hopefully where we can make this work.”
Though the store is open now, officials plan to celebrate a grand opening at the end of next week, once the new sign is installed. In the meantime, Lindley has engaged a handful of chefs and cooks from across the area to start up what amounts to more than half-dozen new restaurants in one space. Shane Stone, a chef from Meeting Place, is the new executive chef.
There’s a pizza bar, a soup bar, a juice bar, two salad bars, a hot bar, a raw bar, a meat bar, a cheese bar and more, as well as a new take on grocery shopping. Instead of offering tons of options, the new grocery bar focuses on an inexpensive option and a recommended option.