When food entrepreneur Dan Giangreco, 24, started considering the defunct Jonesville Country Store for a business opportunity, his plan was to run his frozen flatbread operation — Backcountry Pizza — out of the kitchen. But the owner offered him a challenge he couldn’t pass up: the opportunity to use the whole store.
At the end of May, Giangreco will open with an ambitious concept and a new name, Long Trail Community Market. He envisions the market and café as a resource for hunters and hikers — who can set up supply drops there — as well as the local community. The building will also house an artists’ workshop and an inspected custom meat-cutting facility: “Hunters will be able to process their deer through the store,” Giangreco explains. He’d like to open the kitchen to residents who want to make and sell products such as jams and jellies. Workshops on topics as diverse as sugaring and gardening are in the offing, too.
How did Giangreco come up with the idea? “I was born in Ithaca, so I started out as a Moosewood [Restaurant] baby,” he says. “My background is in fine dining and community development. I look at the facility as a coral reef. You have these varied interests coming together in a hub. Social and economic interests that complement each other and don’t have to be in competition.”
True to the communal spirit, some of the equipment is coming from the defunct, much-loved Daily Bread Bakery & Café of Richmond. “That brings with it good karma and energy,” Giangreco suggests. “On the Rise [Bakery] is one incarnation of that legacy. I’d like to think of part of this as a tribute to The Daily Bread and On the Rise, and the social mission that has really come back into the area.”
This article appears in Apr 22-28, 2009.
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