The Locavore Variety Store–a shop about shopping!–is now open in Greenwich Village

The Locavore Variety Store is now open in Greenwich Village, inspiring New Yorkers to shop small and local by showcasing 130+ brands and 700+ products made within 100 miles (ish) of the city. A true “variety store,” the eclectic product assortment includes homewares like brooms handmade in Brooklyn (Lower Valley) and table linens (Linoto), beauty and wellness items like artist-made body oil (A.OK Oil) and fancy candles (Joya Studios), as well as gourmet goods like dried fettuccine (Borgatti’s) and a pickle barrel (Eddie’s Pickles, NY’s oldest pickle maker).

Caroline Weaver, a specialty shop owner-turned-small business champion, brings her retail experience (CW Pencil Enterprise, 2014-2021), and fanaticism and knowledge of local brands to her latest project–a physical manifestation of The Locavore Guide, an online directory of 14,000+ independent brick-and-mortar retailers in NYC. Over the last two years, Caroline has walked 30,000+ blocks through 170 neighborhoods across the five boroughs to document each listing by hand (no algorithms!) to build a catalog of small, local businesses. The Locavore Variety Store will also sell NYC guidebooks, including The Locavore Guide to Shopping New York City, a printed guidebook publishing later this year.

“So many products that are made locally aren’t easy to find in actual local stores, and my hope is to create an engaging environment for showcasing them. From old-school classics, to great new brands, my goal is to stock products with a keen eye on quality and good design for all categories of life. Locals can come in to stock up on essentials like Pizza Suds liquid detergent and Borgatti’s pasta, and visitors can take home a little piece of the city with them, like my favorite candy (Cannoli Bar) or gorgeous glassware made by Upstate.” said Caroline in a statement.

Caroline adopted and broadened the concept of being a “locavore” (a term referring to the goal of eating food produced within 100 miles of home) to include small businesses across all categories, igniting a movement to support local brick-and-mortars as much as possible. To that end, The Locavore Variety Store will not have an online component.

As with CW Pencil Enterprise, Caroline designed The Locavore Variety Store herself, envisioning a space that is simultaneously nostalgic and modern. She spent hours in the New York Public Library picture collection researching images for inspiration, and took visual cues from NYC’s gourmet grocery stores of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The shop utilizes traditional prefab store fixtures like gondola shelving and pegboards, with playful touches like square tiles with color grout and offbeat signage, and a vibrant color palette (buttery yellow, mint green, bright orange, rich sky blue, and pops of pink and chocolate brown). Upon entering the 600-square foot space, gondola shelving with abundant merchandise fully lines both walls, with another 12-foot-long, counter height gondola shelf in the center with tiled countertop and rounded end caps.

True to The Locavore Guide’s mission, Caroline tapped local vendors like M. Fried in Canarsie, Brooklyn for the shelving fixtures, Tiles Unlimited for tiles in Queens, retail packaging from Relis & Roth in the Bronx, and Connecticut-based Flat Vernacular for wallpaper (printed with hundreds of NYC-related images). The Locavore team is documenting the shop’s evolution with a short video series called Making a Shop.

The Locavore Variety Store’s graphic design is by Brooklyn-based creative agency Gander, who also designed The Locavore Guide website and directory.

The Locavore Variety Store is located at 434 Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village. Initial opening hours are Tuesday-Sunday from 11am – 7pm; the shop will eventually be open daily.

Keep up with What Now New York’s restaurant, retail, and real estate scoop by subscribing to our newsletter , liking us on Facebook , and following us on Twitter . Opening a restaurant? Browse our Preferred Partners .