IF YOU GO
What: Harvest Grocery grand-opening When: Friday, June 12 at 7 a.m. Where: 5414 Hixson Pike, Chattanoooga
In the anxious first minutes after 4 p.m. Tuesday, Norma Maloney filled little white sample cups with broken pieces of her Ooltewah-made LoAdebar granola bars. She, like many others, handed out samples all afternoon at Hixson's newest, $5.5 million grocery store, Harvest Grocery.
Nearby, a three-piece music ensemble struck up a smooth jazz sound, slow and soft; and guests to the new grocery store's VIP preview party filtered in.
For the first time in the better part of a decade, people filled the old Bi-Lo building in the 5400 block of Hixson Pike, the one left for dead when a bigger, Super Bi-Lo opened just up the road.
The one that Harvest Grocery owner and founder Tim McClure, a residential developer, has resurrected.
"I had a dream," he said Tuesday. "I spent a lot of time putting things together and praying hard."
For three years, McClure traveled around to organic, health-centric grocery stores across the Southeast. He researched, and watched, and read and soaked up what he saw at the Trader Joe's, Whole Foods and others between here and there.
Before he darkened the door of a bank, he planned.
Standing in Harvest Grocery on its first public viewing on Tuesday - not by coincidence, also his birthday - McClure pointed out how this fixture came from something he saw in Nashville, or this one from something in North Carolina.
He joked about spotting something he liked at Whole Foods and pointing it out to his wife, on their anniversary.
McClure loves the store. He loves the way it looks inside. Others say he poured himself into the interior decoration, which is on par with any national chain and not reflective of a first attempt at retail.
"The beauty of the store is the favorite part to me," he said. "The product speaks for itself."
Harvest Grocery is 32,000 square feet, has an eat-in area where prepared foods will be available and a vast offering of organic, healthy food options. It's larger, McClure notes, than other notable organic grocery stores in town.
He brought on one of the co-founders of GreenLife Grocery and has plucked Whole Foods managers from near and far to staff Harvest Grocery and turn his vision into a reality.
A developer, he admits needing help with this new venture.
"I didn't try to do something on my own," he said.
And here's the difference between Harvest Grocery and Grocery Bar, the Southside, health-focused independent grocery store that failed earlier this year after struggling to make wages at the end, said McClure.
Grocery Bar was downtown, where people work.
And "it's not downtown here," said McClure.
Harvest Grocery is near the suburbs, where people live.
On Tuesday, the staff of the new store buzzed.
Christina Ervin, a rising junior at Chattanooga High School Center for Creative Arts, stood near the entrance.
"This is my first job, actually," she said.
Through word-of-mouth, Ervin - a vegan - heard about Harvest Grocery needing 80 to 100 full- and part-time employees, and she came out to a job fair hosted at the store in the spring.
She talked with managers, felt good about it, but then didn't hear anything.
"It was kind of nerve-wracking," she said.
Then, the call.
It's a great opportunity to work at a store where similar values are held, she said.
On the wall near the check-out area, a sign reads, "We believe in Hixson" and "We only sell what we'd serve our families."
"I felt like here, I could actually support the products," said Ervin.
The Hixson store opens its doors to the general public Friday morning, at 7 a.m., and gift baskets will be available to the first guests through the door.
And McClure said already, the team is looking at adding a second location near Nashville.
Contact staff writer Alex Green at agreen@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6480.