Thomas 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.

Creative Loafing’s Thomas Wheatly writes on CL’s Omnivore blog…

Several weeks ago, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Blazer, the New England native who founded YDFM in the late 1970s, and his wife Barbara, who also co-owns the market, in their offices overlooking the store. Among a wide variety of issues, our conversation covered the market’s future. Robert, an engineer by training, hoped to one day expand the store to give customers more room and accommodate the various activities — baking, cooking, fruit ripening, warehousing, and much more — that go on behind the scenes. (“Customers only see half the place,” he told me.)

Michael alerted me to this yesterday.  According to a Development of Regional Impact filing that DeKalb County made to the State of Georgia, Your DeKalb Farmer’s Market wants to add 518,000 square feet of retail space to its existing 140,000 square foot building on East Ponce de Leon Ave, east of Decatur.  That means it would grow to four times its current size!

According to the filing…

The proposed expansions of the existing DeKalb Farmers Market include 718,367 SF of new warehouse area and 517,949 SF of new retail area. The proposed project will require 2 new driveways; 1 signalized and 1 unsignalized. The proposed project will provide 2,637 new parking spaces, while 763 existing parking spaces will remain.

The project is estimated to commence in October 2012 and will take 10 years to complete.  10 years?

h/t: Michael via Skyline Views

I feel like someone told me about this or I read it somewhere before, but it’s completely escaped me now.  Eddie writes in…

 Do you have any information on the major addition to the Dekalb Farmers Market. An huge two story addition has been added to the back of the building.

So…anyone know?

Photo courtesy of Your DeKalb Farmer’s Market website

From Paula – conflicted lover of YDFM…

Big news! Went to YDFM this morning, and they didn’t make me check my bags! The customer service person said they were “trying it out”.

Finally, they’re responding to our copious rants from mid-2008!

Scrolling the list of web searches that bring people to your blog is often hilarious and sometimes terrifying.  Here’s my favorite from this morning…

“your dekalb farmer’s market smell blog”

I must admit that I’ve always dreamed that this would be my legacy.  “Kids, when grandpa was a boy, there was a really bad smell and he decided he wasn’t going to stand for it anymore…”

Creative Loafing reports that the farmer’s market has issued a voluntary recall of “ROASTED SALTED PISTACHIO WHOLE KERNELS”, connected to the whole pistachio salmonella scare.

So, this begs the question…does potential salmonella in my food justify a refund?  Or are all sales of potentially salmonella-laced pistachios still final?

Thanks to Andisheh for the link tip-off!