Neighborhood Business Highlight: Chicory Market
Owners, John Martin & Kate Bishop
With its landmark location on North Lamar and its homegrown alternative to the big supermarket chains, Chicory Market has become a community hub for people looking for quality produce and a place where all can feel welcome and attended to daily. It’s definitely more than just a grocery store!
Husband and wife team, John Martin and Kate Bishop, bought the business in 2017. The current site had been a food space serving a diverse group of people for thirty years, and they wanted to keep that part of Oxford going. In the early 1990’s, Burlyn Hollowell ran his produce stand out of what was once an old service station, selling vegetables that he and his friends raised and trucking in exotics from distributors. Liz Stagg and her husband Frank took it over as the Farmers Market and expanded the grocery offerings, tapping into a growing local food movement and catering to new immigrant communities in Oxford. The Farmers Market became Chicory Market in 2017 with its renovated space and a new kitchen to provide daily, healthy prepared meals focused on local ingredients.
Kate and John both come from mission-oriented backgrounds, in education and the arts, so it comes naturally that their approach to Chicory Market would be that way, missional. Their mission is to help build the local food system and to improve access to healthy local food for people of all income levels. Anyone who's shopped with them recently knows that they need more space. They have a plan to expand the market, and they want the larger space to be even more inclusive for the entire community. They envision a place that supports other local food businesses and that offers customers all the groceries they need to cook at better prices.
They are dedicated to their mission and providing a community hub, but it’s the people that make Chicory Market so special to them. John shared, “We have great customers and the best staff. We have a local music legend in Laurie Stirratt making gumbo and other specialty foods in the kitchen. And Nicci Hinkley and KC Kellum came to us as Ajax alums. Kate grew up in Oxford, and those ties along with the student involvement on our staff are important to us. And it's such a joy to connect people with amazing folks like Matt Britt of Clear Creek Produce, Hugh Balthrop of Sweet Magnolia Gelato, and Kelly Jeffus of Johnston Hill who grow and make our food locally.”
We ask our Neighborhood businesses how the Oxford and Lafayette county real estate market affects them. John shared, “We're of two minds about this. On one hand Oxford real estate is booming and bringing new customers every week who have moved here from other parts of the state and the country. We're grateful for that. On the other hand, as real estate prices have gone up, a lot of our friends in the service industry have been pushed farther out, or their wallets are being pinched and they can't spend as much on food. As a small local business, it's also hard to imagine affording commercial rents closer to the square and in some of the new developments around town. We're fortunate to own our space, which makes the tight economics of running a grocery business a little easier to stomach. With all that said, Oxford is still a small town with so many charms and so much cultural energy. That makes what we do at Chicory Market so much more meaningful. We feel very fortunate to be part of all the amazing things others do to make Oxford such a special place.”
Chicory Market is located at 274 CR 101. It’s open Monday-Friday 8:30 am - 6:30 pm, Saturday 8:30 am - 6:00 pm and Sunday 11:00 am - 6:00 pm. We are grateful to Chicory Market for sustaining us with their healthy, homegrown food, but more importantly, for providing a space for everyone to feel welcome in Oxford.
Neighborhoods close by: Briarwood, Grove Meadows, Northpointe, Oxmoor Place, Audubon Park, North Park