When you shop organic and enjoy produce from farmer’s markets and the like, what do you do when that doesn’t exist in your community?
The answer was simple: you start your own.
That idea grew and evolved into the founding of The Wandering Market in Moose Jaw in 2018 and with the rapid success there, the takeover of the Cornerstone Bar and Grill this past October.
It’s made for busy times for both businesses as they continue to build on their fresh and organic ethos even through these difficult times.
“It’s been really good, I’m really glad we chose Moose Jaw because it was really tempting to go to one of the bigger cities like Saskatoon or Regina, but we felt Moose Jaw was really under-served, especially at the time,” said Lee during a short break from running the Market on Wednesday morning. “It can be hard for local people to connect with farmers, and for farmers to connect with them too on an ongoing basis, so we’re happy to be able to help.”
When Lee says ‘farmers,’ plural, she isn’t kidding around.
The Wandering Market works with over 180 different producers in Saskatchewan, helping store, market and distribute their products. The Market itself — located at 461 Athabasca St. E. — has a rustic feel inside, fitting for their farm-fresh items ranging from vegetables to preserves, eggs and flour and just about everything else one can imagine.
Their once-small operation has grown in leaps and bounds, too, as word gets out about what they have to offer.
“Demand is always growing, people are always finding out about us,” Lee said. “And we’re changing people’s mindsets, too, we’re not just a novelty. We actually feeding people, we’re not here just to sell you overpriced produce, we want people to think of this as staples.”
Folks are welcome to stop by the market and shop, or visit their website at www.thewanderingmarket.com and place an order. You can even see which farm the produce is from when making your selection.
With everything going so well with the Wandering Market, Lee and Neuman decided to branch out into the restaurant business this past October, taking over the Cornerstone Bar and Grill and completely revamping the menu offerings to create a farm-to-table experience.
“We already had a really strong customer base, and there’s such a demand for meals with whole food ingredients that cater to allergies and all that, so it’s worked out really well,” Lee said of the first five months at the Cornerstone. “We’re trying to work just with what we can get locally. And especially in the winter months, this is the lean time right now and we’re not seeing a lot of the fresh produce, so that’s been a challenge and it’s been a huge learning curve. But there’s been such a good response and it’s been busy all the time, trying to keep up with that and keep it interesting and work with what we have.”
Chef Corina Riley of The Table Catering Company works with the Cornerstone to put together their menu. Riley and the Wandering Market have been featured in an expansive book by Jenn Sharp entitled Flat Out Delicious, detailing hundreds of local food artisans in Saskatchewan.
The Cornerstone has also worked toward expanding their selection of tap beer from local breweries and have found success in that venture.
“As we were running out of the taps, we’ve been replacing every single one with local breweries and it’s amazing how many of them there are in Saskatchewan who are producing really good beer,” Lee said. “Then we do flights, too, so you can come in and try a local beer sampling.”
It’s all made for a busy time at the local restaurant, both for dine-in clientele and delivery and take-out.
“A lot of people are going ‘is this a good time to be going to a restaurant?’ but they decide they want to try it,” Lee said. “People still have to eat, you just have to find a way to get it to them.”
You can visit the Cornerstone website at www.cornerstonemoosejaw.com for more on their current menu.
Overall, Lee is happy to see things going as well as they are in Moose Jaw, and looks forward to the years ahead.
“We’re really grateful to the community here. It’s a real risk to build something like this in a smaller city, especially when nothing like this has been done here, but everyone has been amazing,” she said.
“We started out with no employees and now we’re at 24, so it’s growing and we’ll see where it goes in the future.”
