Prompted by her passion for the environment and frustrated by the lack of legislative action, a Washington College of Law alumna opened a new grocery store in Dupont Circle featuring all-local produce and goods.
As a fourth generation grocer, Danielle Vogel used her genetic legacy to put her passion for environmentalism in action by opening Glen’s Garden Market.
After graduating from WCL in 2007, Vogel entered the Department of Justice to be an environmental litigator. Working on the Hill for more than 10 years, she lost faith in the passing of a global climate change bill, she said.
She continued pursuing environmental sustainability by turning to the “family business.”
Vogel’s grandfathers and her own father, after whom the venue is named, owned their own competing supermarket chains in New York. The family history and support she received helped her find a vessel for her cause.
“I wanted to create a business that would be a change agent, and so I would be empowering people to make change one bite at a time,” Vogel said.
Vogel now brings food and produce from six different states to the District. The farthest reaching local supplier is Maya Kaimal of Rhinebeck, N.Y., who grows Indian spices. The venue uses inventory from more than 300 local vendors in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, according to Vogel.
“The idea was we would be serving locally one bite at a time while growing all these small businesses while we grow ourselves,” Vogel said.
Vogel said she is confident her number of suppliers and vendors will increase.
Many of Glen’s Garden Market’s vendors have never sold their products directly to retail, which is the most exciting part of creating the venue, Vogel said.
“We’re introducing the neighborhood to products they have never seen before and they can’t get elsewhere,” Vogel said.
Glen’s Garden Market also offers a craft beer and wine bar and a prepared food department, overseen by Chef Sean Sullivan.
As the first all-local grocery store in D.C., Glen’s Garden Market has plans for expanding in northern Virginia and Maryland.
“I think it’s a concept whose time has come,” Vogel said. “I just happen to be the first one to execute it.”
While Vogel has no business experience as of now, she consults her husband, Ken, who is a reporter at Politico, and on her uncles on both sides, who came down to help her with the opening.
The whole family came to the opening to help stock the shelves, refill the bakery case and produce the prepared foods.
The indoor market filled with anxiety as everyone rushed for the noon opening on April 21.
And they had a lot of help getting prepared: 75 employees were working on the Sunday opening, according to Vogel.
The opening day was a rush of employees restocking, giving free-samples and serving customers. Meanwhile, many local grocery shoppers could be seen enjoying a glass of beer as they moved from the wall of salsas to the gluten-free displays and onward.
In the back of Glen’s, the prepared food staff gave suggestions to customers and served a growing crowd behind a large brushed-steel counter.
Customers could sip their beer or wine as they continued shopping and sampling the free food on the silver trays of the employees walking around.
“Nobody believed that you can open a grocery store using entirely local products, which I knew we could,” said Vogel.
Glen’s Garden Market is now open daily from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.
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