Creative Loafing’s Inside Look at “Your DeKalb Farmer’s Market”
Decatur Metro | May 24, 2012Thomas Wheatley has an excellent in-depth profile in the latest Creative Loafing of Your DeKalb Farmer’s Market, including a rare interview with owner Robert Blazer.
History, behind the scenes looks, interviews with staff members, future plans. It’s all in there.
Oh and according to Wheatley, if plans to triple the store’s size over the next 10 years play out, it will become the largest grocery store in the United States and could employ upwards of 1,500.
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As long as they keep making the beef jerky, carrying live crawfish and chicken that actually has flavor, let em get huge!
Yeah but will they have an animatronic zoo like Jungle Jim’s?
http://www.junglejims.com/
Jungle Jim’s is a national treasure.
Well, lets here it from all the whiners. Smell, bread, return, security, blah blah blah
They are far too successful to listen to your crap and I would prefer fewer people at the best market in the city.
So you WANT to hear from the whiners?
My wife and I don’t whine… after our baked goods and coffee had that “DeKalb Farmer’s Market smell” taste and after they gave us a bag of fish heads and parts instead of the filets we asked them to cut and then refused to refund our money… we just stopped going. Still miss those tasty samosas.
Seriously/?? Those Samosas can’t touch Royal Sweets on Scott. You must try them.
+100
THAT is a very well written story. I learned a lot. Should be required reading in Business 101. Kudos to Thomas Wheatley of CL.
Right?? I know he had been working on it for a while. A real scoop!
Many thanks, Bob. I could only fit in about half of what I learned. And thanks for posting, DM!
Kudos. Thanks for putting this together.
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What an amazing resource the YDFM is for people who live in this area!
So when/where do we get to see the unabridged version?
I’m tempted to stand outside the courthouse and yell all the facts I couldn’t include so I can clear my mind. It’d be a freeing experience.
Seriously, I’m going to try to post a blog post in the coming days about what was left on the cutting room floor during the writing process. That would appear on Fresh Loaf (click my name above to get there quick-like).
Yep, that was a great article and it makes me feel even better about shopping there. Yes, I like to complain about the smell, the bag policy, and the no returns, but I still find myself there every week. And as I’ve become a better cook, I find myself buying more and more at the FM and less and less at Kroger. Thanks Mr. Wheatley!
I LOVE YDFM! And, I shop there every week, sometimes multiple times a week, and do probably 99% of my grocery shopping there. This was a great article! I remember shopping with my grandmother at the original location (where Melton’s is now).
My biggest question after reading this article is: why do they not offer health insurance to their employees? That one issue may be enough to cause me to stop shopping there! How is it even legal for a company that size not to offer health insurance benefits?
Since my husband and I are self-employed and supply our own health insurance, I can tell you why. We pay a cost that would be big chunk of money to these employees for a health saving account plan (where you have a very large deductible but can invest in a IRA-like tax deductible investment vehicle). Even if the employer supplied these policies, they’d mean almost nothing to someone at blue-collar income levels because of the deductibles. With a smaller deductible, he’d be looking at even more enormous costs.
Employer-provided healthcare makes no sense in our modern medical system. It poses huge costs to employers. It suppresses job mobility for employees and discourages entrepreneurs.
Huh? Employer-provided health care pretty much IS our health care system. Amirite? Aren’t all of us god-fearing Americans deathly afraid of a single-payer system? Otherwise, we would all be living in France, enjoying affordable daycare, the month of August off and children who clean their bowls of vichyssoise. (Ducks and runs for cover…)
Will you be my friend?
Under the (un)Affordable Care Act, employers with more than 50 employees will face penalties for not providing healthcare. But since the penalty (3k or less per employee I think) will still be less than the healthcare, employers will be tempted to eliminate healthcare.
Never understood that logic. If a company is providing insurance already, while there’s currently no penalty, why would a penalty suddenly cause them to drop their benfits?
Because now the government will be there to do it for them. They won’t worry as much about losing out competitively for employees. They offer it now to make sure they get the best employees they can. It’s happening already, so whether you understand it or not, that is the reality. Free market works well when left alone. But there is absolutely no reason for health insurance to be tied to a job. The average worker changes jobs every four years. Just doesn’t make sense.
As long as it results in billboards on 85 every mile from here to Richmond, I love the expansion idea.
You never sausage a place!
Good idea! Instead of “See Rock City”…. “See YDFM”….. painted on every old barn roof for five hundred miles. Or do it like Burma Shave…. guess I am a little old, eh?
The owner sounds like a real nice guy.
Despite the affiliations with an organization that could be called a cult, despite the fact that YDFM is not a farmers’ market, despite the sub-par butchering, and despite the scary stories about security, I still shop there. The selection of organic produce is excellent, and turnaround is fast, so most things stay fresh–though check your shellfish before you put it in your cart.
…I still won’t go to Chick-Fil-A, though. I draw my moral line before that place.
Your Dekalb Farmers Market
Yep, that’s the real name – “Your” not The and NO apostrophe. After all, it belongs to Robert Blazer, not the farmers.
Very good article and thanks for sharing. I’ve been going to DFM since I could drive so about 33 years. I take all my visiting guests that like to cook there for the experience. We are very lucky to have a place like this so close to home.