New farm stop to open before end of summer

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A new farm stop will soon open its doors at the former Bistro Market, Pyramid Foods’ downtown liquor and grocery store that closed in 2017.

Within the month, Ozarks Farm Stop will begin serving local products through a partnership with Farmers Market of the Ozarks, according to its organizers. The 10,000-square-foot storefront will include meat, produce and dairy products, handmade jewelry and pottery, health and wellness items such as soap, and grab-and-go goods like pastries.

Karissa Kary, founder of Ozarks Farm Stop and director of the Farmers Market of the Ozarks, said farm stops are becoming a nationwide trend, and she wanted to create a grocery store that supports local farmers.

“You’ll never buy a lemon here,” Kary said. “You know why? Because we don’t make lemons in Missouri. This will always have local things.”

By having a place for farmers to bring their products, Kary said the farm stop will reduce the physical toll of working at a farmers market. She also said this will allow farmers to sell their products throughout the year, which is something that is harder to do in the winter.

“About one in three, one in four markets are a bust because of weather,” Kary said. “This gives them a place to extend their season and their actual days because this will be open 45 hours a week.”

Traditional farm shares give an average of 15 cents on the dollar to the farmer, but through the farm stop, vendors will receive at least 70% of the retail price for each item, Kary said. Featured vendors will receive around 75%. Vendors will have portals to see what has been sold, what their inventory looks like, and are paid twice a month, Kary said.

Kary said the farm stop will have multiple grand openings, with about 30 vendors included in the first wave. The building will also undergo a small demolition, she said, to remove a wall separating the 3,200-square-foot main entrance and market space from the rest of the facility. Kary said the work would provide better access between the two spaces and allow vendors and customers to move from one part of the farm stop to the other.

The second part of the facility, which still boasts the Bistro Market signage, is targeted for development within the next year, Kary said. It's envisioned as having a bodega where customers can shop for essentials like toilet paper, as well as space for cooking demonstrations, cooking lessons, lessons in gardening and a space for a commercial kitchen.

“It was ahead of its time,” Kary said of the Bistro Market. “This was a bespoke, high-end, gourmet deli.”

Kary said it was as nice as any deli she had recently seen in New York, Montreal or London – 16 years ago in Springfield.

“A lot of people still really miss it,” she said. “We are a different variety of that because we are hyper-localized in that way.”

Ozarks Farm Stop is currently working with seven downtown restaurants and has an ongoing lease with Three D Properties, Kary said.