Details surrounding Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market expansion emerge

The Carytown store is upping its food and booze game with a new made-to-order kitchen called Create and a new bar and café area.

August 28, 2015; 10:03 AM • by Trevor Dickerson

From Style Weekly:

Richmond and its battling grocery stores — here’s one quote from an out-of-town friend: “What’s up with this place? It’s like Crazy Cucumber Town.”

Take the exit from Interstate 195 to West Cary Street and you’ll find Kroger, Martin’s, Fresh Market and Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market — all within a four-block radius. Throw in a couple of major drugstore chains, and there isn’t lot you can’t buy on your weekly shopping trip.

Ellwood Thompson’s has held firm in its niche by steadfastly supporting local vendors and offering as many organic and nongenetically modified products as it can. It’s diversified through the years, adding a meat-and-seafood counter, a vast hot bar, sushi, growlers and most recently, a juice bar.

In its last expansion, the store added a community room that proved to be enormously popular. But owner Rick Hood and Colin Beirne, Ellwood Thompson’s marketing manager, thought it could use a makeover.