The big news around the Quad Cities the past couple three weeks has been the addition of two new markets that cater more toward those who seek better choices for more healthy and fresh foods. Natural Grocers based out of Colorado opened on April 19 in Davenport and a week later Fresh Thyme Farmers Market based out of suburban Chicago also opened in Davenport. Both places were predictably packed with shoppers in their first few days of business, but on a Sunday morning we got up and went first to Fresh Thyme and then over to Natural Grocers.
It drives my wife absolutely crazy that I'll go to the store nearly every day I'm home to pick up something for dinner that evening rather than planning days in advance what we're going to have and having the food on hand. I grew up in the country and we went to the grocery store maybe once a week - sometimes twice. But I can't tell you how many times that I wanted something simple like milk and we'd be out of it. Now, THAT would drive me crazy! We live almost equidistant between a Hy-Vee and a Schnucks, so if we're out of anything, or I want to cook something fresh that evening, it's a two minute drive to either one of those stores. To me, it's heaven. To my wife, it's maddening. Now with Fresh Thyme in the mix - also a two minute drive from our house - it gives me a third option in our immediate area.
The Davenport Fresh Thyme location is in the newly renovated (well, and it's still being renovated) Kimberly Crossing shopping plaza on E. Kimberly Road. (see map) It's housed in the space that was formerly an Eagle Country Market grocery store (before Eagle declared bankruptcy in 2000 and went out of business a couple of years later), then the space was an Incredible Pizza franchise for a couple years before going out of business in 2012. A couple years ago, a Florida investment group bought the shopping plaza - formerly called the Spring Village Shopping Center - and began an extensive renovation that included demolition of out-buildings and a complete overhaul of the strip center's facade. The Davenport location of Fresh Thyme is the 60th store in 10 states, and the second in the state of Iowa.
The first Fresh Thyme opened in suburban Chicago in 2014, but the management group that heads the fast growing grocery chain actually has deep roots in organic markets. CEO Chris Sherrill worked for Colorado-based Wild Oats Marketplace for nearly ten years before becoming the head of Arizona-based Sunflower Farmers Market in 2003. After Sunflower merged with Sprouts Farmers Market in 2012, Sherrill looked at the untapped Midwest marketplace for the next round of organic-based markets.
With the financial backing of the Meijer grocery store chain based in Grand Rapids, MI, Sherrill opened the first Fresh Thyme Farmers Market in Mount Prospect, IL. Originally based in Phoenix, Sherrill eventually moved the corporate offices for Fresh Thyme to Downers Grove, IL with the plan of opening 50 stores in five years. However, they had 16 stores by the end of 2014, 28 by the end of 2015 and 48 by the end of 2016. With the success of the Fresh Thyme concept - which many people consider a melding of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods - their amended goal is to have 70 stores open by the end of this year.
It was around 7:30 a.m. on Sunday morning when we walked into Fresh Thyme. The layout is similar to other Fresh Thyme's I've been in before with the deli that will make pizzas and fresh sandwiches along with the salad bar off to the right side corner of store. Part of the deli is an artisan bread bakery where breads are baked fresh daily. The deli primarily features Boar's Head meats in their cases.
Fresh Thyme has a wide variety of "quick-pick" items that allows customers to get food on the go for a quick meal. They also had a pretty impressive cheese island that featured a number of Boar's Head cheese items. I picked up a wedge of Pecorino Romano cheese for a future batch of fettuccine alfredo at home.
The produce section was also impressive with a number of organically grown vegetables and fruits. Since it was also their grand opening, they had a number of specially priced items in the produce aisles. But even at the regular prices, we felt the produce they had to offer were on par with every day produce prices we see at Schnuck's and Hy-Vee. The Fresh Thyme crew was busy restocking the produce section when we were there, so it was a little tricky navigating around the carts and boxes in the aisles.
Fresh Thyme also puts an emphasis on bulk items in the store with bins and bins of natural and organic grains, nuts and spices. They also had an area with an assortment of small batch coffee bean available in bulk. And they had bulk candy such as gummy bears, and different types of trail mix to choose from.
The meat counter wasn't very big, but it featured a number of selections of hormone-free, naturally raised beef, pork and chicken. There was a good variety of sausage and brats that are made in house daily. They had a small seafood section and the salmon they had didn't look bad, but it was still early in the morning and they were replenishing much of the items in the case.
I wandered down toward the dairy section of the store and found what was their juice station. While they don't offer individual juices by the glass, they have a number of fresh juices that they bottle in pint, quart and half-gallon bottles. The young lady who was bringing out bottles of fresh juice told us that they make it up in 8 quart batches and the juices have a short shelf life of only three or four days because there are no additives or sugars included. (They do make fresh lemonade with sugar added.)
We started down the aisles to see what they had to offer. While you'll find many organic brands, Fresh Thyme also features a number of nationally-known labels on their shelves. Surprisingly to me, I found that they carried HP Sauce in their condiment section. I usually have to get HP Sauce at World Market stores in larger midwestern markets, but I was happy to find that Fresh Thyme carried it. HP Sauce goes great with barbecued or roasted pork.
The supplement and vitamin aisle was of high interest to my wife. There were literally thousands of bottles and containers of all different types of vitamins, supplements and health aids in this aisle. I'm not big into vitamins or supplements, but my wife is and she spent a long amount of time seeing what they had to offer.
The natural body care section was a little different from ones I've encountered in Chicago and the Twin Cities. In those stores, the body care section is in an aisle, while the one in Davenport has its own corner of the store. I noticed that natural body care products were also expensive.
The two wine aisles at Fresh Thyme featured a somewhat impressive selection. The only problem was that the prices were high - even with the grand opening specials they were running. The refrigerated beer case had some craft beers available, but the selection wasn't all that great. I did find a bottle of Malbec wine from Argentina that I've had in the past and I grabbed that. They I remembered that it was Sunday and I looked at the time. In Iowa, you can't buy liquor, beer or wine before 8 a.m. But it was 7:55 a.m. and we wouldn't be checking out until after 8.
When we got up to the checkout counter, the young lady checking us out stopped with the wine bottle was scanned. She said, "I'm sorry. We can't sell this. It's too early."
I was incredulous as I looked at the clock on my phone. "It's after 8," I said.
"We can't sell it until after 10," she explained. "It's flagged on our register as not being able to sell until 10 a.m."
I was mildly irritated and I said, "Look, I can go over to Hy Vee right across the street and buy liquor right now."
An older lady who was sacking our groceries said, "Well, in Indiana, you can't buy wine or beer on Sunday."
I said, "Well, this isn't Indiana. In Iowa, you can buy wine and liquor starting at 8 a.m."
Another Fresh Thyme employee was standing there and she said, "In Omaha, you can't buy until noon."
"Once again," I said in a somewhat testy manner. "This isn't Omaha."
I asked if this was a store policy for Fresh Thyme. No one could give me an answer. And no one offered to get a manager for a clarification. I just sort of waved off the bottle of wine and we paid for the groceries that we got.
My wife chastised me in the parking lot for my surly behavior toward the Fresh Thyme staff, but then she said, "But I'm very surprised that they wanted to argue with you and not have a manager involved." The more she got to thinking about it, the more incensed she got about the situation. (We'd just had a couple of service issues over the past couple of nights with a couple of restaurants that we like to visit and those experiences were still sticking in her craw.)
She even went as far as calling the Fresh Thyme store and asked to speak to the store manager a couple three hours later. Once she did talk to the manager and told him of the situation, he told her that he'd heard about our ordeal after a man had tried to buy a bottle of champagne to go with the freshly squeezed orange juice he'd picked up for mimosas. Evidently, the guy who was denied the sale of the champagne was a little more vociferous in his protests than I was. It turns out that since Fresh Thyme is an Illinois-based company, their internal computer system for the Davenport store was set up for Illinois laws. And you can't buy liquor in Illinois until 10 a.m. on Sunday. He assured my wife that getting the glitch in the system to allow for liquor sales at 8 a.m. on Sunday's would be fixed first thing Monday morning.
After taking our groceries home and getting an espresso at one of our local coffee bars, we decided to head over to Natural Grocers to check that place out. Now, my wife had been to Natural Grocers for a brief visit about a week before, but didn't really look around that much because the place was very busy. We walked in just as they opened at 9 a.m.
Philip and Margaret Isely settled in the Denver area in the early 50's and started to raise a family. After the birth of their second child, Margaret became chronically ill and nothing seemed to be help her shake her malady. She turned to two pioneers of natural and nutritional healing - Adelle Davis and Roger Williams - to help nutrionally guide her back to health. After a miraculous recovery, Philip and Margaret were more than convinced that natural foods were a key to better health.
In 1955 after borrowing $200 from Margaret Isely's mother, the couple began to bake whole wheat breads and went around to homes in Golden, CO door-to-door selling the bread and offering pamphlets of nutritional and natural recipes for healthy eating. Of course, most people thought they were crazy given that white bread was a staple in nearly every American house. But the Isely's persevered and they opened Vitamin Cottage in 1958, a small shop that sold vitamins and supplements.
To say that they Isely's were ahead of their time is an understatement. They were activist hippies long before anyone knew what a hippie really was. They were pacifists - Philip served time in prison during World War II for being a "conscientious objector" - and they formed an independent political party called the "Conservation of Life" party. Philip ran unsuccessfully as a U.S. Senator candidate in 1958 while Margaret also unsuccessfully ran for a state representative office in Colorado the same year.
The Isely's were also involved in a concept called the World Parliament that was a worldwide non-military government based on peace initiatives and solving environmental problems. Philip Isely was the lead author on the organization's constitution - The Earth Constitution - that outlined the ideals of a worldwide government. After a local newspaper branded the couple as communists, their neighbors picketed their house. The FBI eventually investigated the couple but found that they were merely pacifists working for a better planet.
The Isely's eventually had seven children - all with unique names such as Zephyr, LaRock, and Lark - and all of whom were raised on natural foods free of sugar and unhealthy by-products. The kids all helped out at the Vitamin Cottage while they were growing up, and as more and more people became health conscious the little business began to grow. By the mid-70's, the Vitamin Cottage had become profitable and more stores opened around the Denver area.
With Philip Isely focused on the World Parliament movement, Margaret was working on growing the Vitamin Cottage business. The two eventually divorced and remarried to other spouses. Margaret passed away in 1998 at the age of 75 while Philip Isely died in his sleep in 2012 at the age of 96. In each Natural Grocers store is a picture of Margaret Isely hanging prominently on the wall. And in another touch, each Natural Grocers stores close at 9:06 p.m. (7:04 p.m. on Sundays) because Margaret Isely didn't think it was kind to stop people from shopping right at closing.
When Margaret Isely passed away, her children took over the day-to-day operation of the business. This is when they decided to be bold and expand their business to other states. By 2005, the family had changed the name of the stores to Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage in the Denver area, and each new store was branded as a Natural Grocers in other markets. In 2012, the family took to company public, but they still hold nearly 60% of the stock in Natural Grocers.
Each Isely child involved in the business brought a special talent to the table. Brothers Kemper and Zephyr are co-presidents of the company with Kemper overseeing business development and site acquisitions, and Zephyr running the company's point-of-sale, ordering, and Internet Technology divisions. Their sister Heather is the product manager overseeing the majority of produce, health and food items that the stores sell. And very interestingly, their brother LaRock's ex-wife Liz Isely is in charge of the company wide store facilities.
The Natural Grocers location in Davenport is along the busy 53rd Ave. corridor and sits on a spot where a Ruby Tuesday restaurant once stood. (see map) Ruby Tuesday closed down a number of locations in the Midwest in 2012 and the building sat empty for four years before Natural Grocers came in and bought the building and surrounding property in 2016. After demolishing the restaurant, work began on the property in the fall of last year. Initial reports were that Natural Grocers were looking to be open by the summer of this year, so it was a surprise when we heard that it would be open by the end of April. As I said, they opened on April 19. The Davenport location is the 142nd Natural Grocers in the company - the fifth one in Iowa - and the furthest east of any of the Natural Grocers locations spread across 19 states.
The floor plan of the Natural Grocers store is much smaller than Fresh Thyme. And all products sold in the store are 100% organic. There is no bakery, no butcher counter, and no national brands sold at Natural Grocers. And a wide array of gluten-free products are found in their stores.
The produce section was prominently featured as you walk into the store and it was surprisingly small. But it had a wide array of fresh organic fruits and vegetables. Natural Grocers only offers produce that adheres to standards of organic growing by the United States Department of Agriculture.
The vitamin and supplement aisle rivals and probably surpasses the one at Fresh Thyme. My wife spent a good amount of time perusing what they had to offer as she's big on supplements.
I wandered ahead of her as I don't do vitamins or supplements and I found a little cubby hole toward the back corner that was an area that had a number of books on nutrition, organic cookbooks, and general health. This was Natural Grocers Nutritional Library. When I pointed this out to my wife, she immediately stopped what she was doing and began to look through the books. They had a chair next to the shelves of books and I remarked that this was like a mini Barnes and Noble for the health conscious crowd. I went off to wander around the rest of the store and ten minutes later my wife was still looking through the books they had.
The dairy section offered milk, cream, butter, cheese, yogurt, and a number of other products that are certified as coming from non-confined cattle. Cattle who produce dairy products for Natural Grocers come from organic certified farms, are grass-fed, and are free from GMO grains and forages. Dairy products from grass-fed cattle usually have more of the good fatty acids like Omega-3 and CLA (conjugated linoleic acids), and more vitamins than confined dairy cattle.
They didn't have a bulk bin area at Natural Grocers like they do at Fresh Thyme, and most of the items are housed in a refrigerated case. Natural Grocers feels that their customers shouldn't have to measure out the bulk seeds, oats, nuts or flour, so they do it for them at a production facility and deliver the bagged items to the stores. Gluten-free products are also found in this section of the store.
Of course, Natural Grocers has a wide array of health and body care products. My wife is into essential oils and they stock a vast assortment of oils at the store. Cosmetics, skin care, oral hygiene, bath and body products, and even gluten-free body care products can be found at Natural Grocers.
Even though they don't have a meat counter at Natural Grocers, that doesn't mean that they don't stock different types of beef, pork and poultry at the store. Natural Grocers has strict guidelines on how the livestock they eventually have for their meat department is raised - no confinements, grass-fed, organic vegetable and non-GMO forage diets, and the animals are hormone and anti-biotic free.
The prices reflected the care and attention that goes into raising the livestock and poultry for Natural Grocers. Ground bison was somewhat reasonable compared to other places around the Quad Cities that sell bison meat. They were selling it for $10.79 a pound, but we've gotten it from a bison farm at the Freight House Farmer's Market for $8.99 a pound.
The pork prices were - in my estimation - sky high. A 1-1/3 pound pork loin was $15.71. I saw an 8 ounce package of chicken tenders for $6.69. And THAT was a sale price! I'm sorry. I'll continue to take my chances with industrially-raised meats and poultry.
The juice aisle featured a number of fruit and vegetable juices, as well as a number of detoxification juices. Many of the juices were gluten and sugar-free and there was a large number to choose from.
Probably what amazed me the most at Natural Grocers was the large number and different varieties of whey protein they had to offer. I don't understand the benefits of whey protein, per se. But my wife does. Natural Grocers employ nutritional health coaches in their stores to help customers with coming up with the right balance of healthy foods to eat.
There is no deli at Natural Grocers, but they do have a "grab and go" case that features salads, burritos, sandwiches, wraps and other quick and healthy meals for lunch or dinner. They also have a wide selection of ethnic foods at the store including basic items to make Mexican, Asian or Indian foods. My wife and I are fans of Indian food and we looked at some of the items that they had to make the base sauces and spices for Indian dishes. I'm still not convinced I can make Indian food at home as good as we get it at one of the area Indian restaurants we like in the Quad Cities.
After checking out - we had about five or six items and Natural Grocers is a "no bag" establishment (we bought a reusable Natural Grocers bag for 99 cents) - I wandered into a room just by the check-out counter. Each Natural Grocers has a demonstration room where they hold free seminars on healthy cooking, wellness guidance, and nutritional information. Each seminar lasts anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes and features either in-store consultants or outside representatives giving demonstrations and/or talks on a healthier lifestyle. My wife picked up a sheet listing the upcoming seminars and actually went to one a couple nights later.
The biggest impact of both Fresh Thyme and Natural Grocers coming to town will probably be felt most at Davenport's longtime organic health food market Greatest Grains. While the presentations at Fresh Thyme and Natural Grocers are modern and slick, Greatest Grains has the look and feel of an old time market that is stuck in the 70's. I'm sure that they'll maintain a segment of their loyal clientele, but one can't help but think that Greatest Grains' overall business could suffer with these two organic market chains coming to town.
For years, people around the Quad Cities have been clamoring for a Trader Joe's to come to the area. Trader Joe's has a minimum threshold of diverse economic and populace criteria they use to determine whether they'll put a store in a given area. They're currently building a Trader Joe's in Coralville, right next to Iowa City, so at least they're getting closer to the Quad's. With the announcement that Costco has a strong interest in coming to Davenport, it appears that we may be getting closer to the day when we have all the trendy places to shop for groceries. But with the opening of both Fresh Thyme Farmers Market and Natural Grocers, the Quad Cities area has taken a big step forward in the number of choices we now have for quality food grocers.
I've often thought Greatest Grains was dirty and dumpy. Yes, this may hurt them, but they should have seen it coming. I've been to both Natural Grocers and Fresh Time and I don't know if I'll ever go back to Greatest Grains.
Posted by: Steph's Mom | May 06, 2017 at 09:58 AM