Providing Provisions

It’s the old story. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em—at least part of the way.

Down in Raleigh, North Carolina, whose downtown is going through something of a resurgence or gentrification, a new grocery called Raleigh Provisions has opened its doors.

Owner Kim Hammer isn’t aiming to be a big supermarket, even though downtown is still something of a food desert in that respect. Instead, Hammer, who formerly owned a dessert and cocktail bar, is curating selection in favor of mostly locally produced foods and ingredients—the same high quality items local restaurants use in their dishes, enabling customers to make the same ones at home.

This is a true urban store, which will draw customers from roughly a four-block area as well as tourists. As Hammer told an interviewer: People who are new to this area and maybe not familiar with the high quality and density of amazing products that we have right here in North Carolina,” she said. “We’re really blessed in this area to have this amazing stuff.”