Please arrive 10 minutes before your tour begins to arrange for your B-cycle. Tour riders must be 18 years or older and remember to bring a bicycle helmet. Contact us at info@charlottecentercity.org to make your reservations during one of the following times and dates:

Saturday, April 27: 9:30am

Saturday, April 27, 11:00am

Sunday, April 28^th: 11:00am

About 7th Street Public Market
The 7th Street Public Market provides high-quality, fresh and affordable food from local farms and regional purveyors. It is the anchor of a dynamic market district that serves as a community gathering place, celebrates the diverse regional food culture of the Carolinas, supports local and regional farmers and food artisans as well as the regional network of markets, serves as an incubator for food-related businesses and helps mitigate food deserts in surrounding neighborhoods addressing access, health and food education and costs.
For more information, please visit www.7thStreetPublicMarket.com

About Charlotte Center City Partners
Charlotte Center City Partners envisions and implements strategies and actions to drive the economic, social and cultural development of Charlotte’s Center City. The organization envisions a Center City in Charlotte that is viable, livable, memorable, and sustainable, with modern infrastructure, a tapestry of unique neighborhoods, and a diversity of thriving businesses. Charlotte Center City Partners provides administrative, marketing, communications and management support for the 7th Street Public Market. For more information, please visit www.charlottecentercity.org.

The best definition of a public market comes from the Project for Public Spaces (PPS), an organization whose mission is to create and sustain public places that build communities. As they put it, public markets are “markets which operate in or as a public space, feature only locally owned and operated businesses, and which have a broader public purpose, such as neighborhood revitalization or improving community health.”

A relatively wide variety of places may serve this purpose, and indeed, public markets take shape in various ways. Here at the 7^th Street Public Market, our mission as a non-profit organization outlines our larger purpose: to celebrate the regional food culture of the Carolinas, to support local farmers, food producers, and farmers markets, to incubate small food-related businesses, and to increase food access in Charlotte. PPS also recognizes the important role public markets play in developing local economies, supporting public health, and developing local food systems, which are central to the Market’s vision for development.

Farmers’ markets may meet most these criteria, too, but for the most part, they feature vendors who are growing or producing their own food. While selling local is a major centerpiece of the Public Market, you’ll also see products beyond food as well as some foods that are not exclusively local. In addition, at Charlotte’s public market, you’ll find restaurants who are making prepared foods at the Market next to retailers who are selling other kinds of foods and ingredients.

The overall vision for the Market is to become the anchor of a larger market district at this end of Uptown as well to serve as an authentic community gathering place that reflects the diversity and creativity of our town. As we grow, we hope you’ll become a part of what we’re doing by coming in to support our businesses and be a part of our community. When it comes down to it, supporting local is about building relationships, and we’re eager to build a relationship with you.

Jerry Greene has operated Greeneman Farms for the last 12 years, but his family’s roots in agriculture go deeper. Though Jerry comes from a family history in raising grain and horses, he has grown into a role that has him promoting direct-to-consumer North Carolina foods – think honey, salsa, jams, and pickled veggies of all kinds.

As a member of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture’s Goodness Grows in North Carolina program, Jerry is committed to putting forth the best of what our state’s food trends and traditions. According to NCDA, “the Goodness Grows in North Carolina program … is designed to promote top-quality fresh produce, processed food items, fiber and nursery products that are grown or manufactured in North Carolina.” That means at Jerry’s shop at the Market, you will find everything from eggs to chow-chow to veggies that come from this state. He finds products through relationships with growers and producers formed from years of selling at farmers’ markets and directly through the Goodness Grows product list.

As great as all the products are at Greeneman, though, from their taste to their local origin, the hands-down best part of stopping by the place is interacting with Jerry himself. A true NC native, Jerry’s been around, and he has possibly the friendliest disposition you’ll ever encounter. That makes him and his business a perfect addition to the 7^th Street Public Market, which is about not just food but also about making connections.

So stop in, grab some pickled okra and dilly green beans (Bloody Marys, anyone?), talk with Jerry, and become a part of our community.

You have a house full of guests and a few things to do in the kitchen before dinner is served. What is the best way to keep the guests occupied and out of the kitchen? Why a cheese plate, of course. Well, this is our opinion. It’s been tested and it works. The easiest way to create a selection is just ask your local cheesemonger. We’ve guided countless harried hosts and hostesses before on occasions such as these. We’ll ask a few questions first, such as how many people you’ll be serving. It’s just a guide: sometimes, if your guests are especially hungry or just find the cheese to be delicious, you’ll squeak by with just enough. It’s advisable to order a little more so that you have leftovers. You’ll be happy that you did, who will want to cook the next evening? We’ll also ask if the crowd is a little more or a little less adventurous. You wouldn’t want to be serving up Meadow Creek Dairy’s Grayson to a plain pasta crowd. Or maybe you do. If your crowd is a little less adventurous, go ahead and throw in a curve ball, you might expand their cheese horizons. We also might recommend adding crackers into the mix. I prefer to eat cheese on it’s own, but like to have crackers or baguettes on the side to either cleanse my palate or just to snack. A jam or a chutney might be nice too, to add a little more complexity to the plate. But really our secret is this: listening to your idea of what the cheese plate should be and then choosing three to five cheeses of varying flavors, textures, and milks that fit in those parameters. Or leave it completely up to us. We’ll make you and your guests happy!

What does any cheesemonger do when they move to a new city (aside from visit the first cheese shop they can find)? Jump in the car and set off for the nearest dairy! That’s what we did this past August. Before opening up shop we wanted to meet some of the local cheese makers, so we headed north to Statesville to Holton Hollow Farm. Jeff Holton is a third generation dairy farmer, now retired. But he likes having cows around, so he keeps a few that he cares for as if they were pets. We didn’t get to meet the Jersey girls that day, it was too beautiful a day for the cows to be hanging around the barn. They had left for the creek minutes before we arrived and they would not, for all the calling by Jeff, come back to pay us a visit. In the off chance that the cows would listen to the call, we hung around the barn and talked cheese for the next hour or so while the boys ran around chasing the chickens with an occasional break, feeding one of the non-milkers some hay. Debbie is the cheese maker and she stopped by to open a wheel of cheese so we could finally taste the glorious milk in fermented form. The cheese is called Farmstead and Jeff doesn’t want to give it a fancy name or a place name, he just wants the cheese to speak for itself. And it does. The black waxed rind contrasts starkly with the golden paste. The paste might give you the impression that it looks like a mild Havarti-style but the aroma is buttery and so is the first taste but that gives way to a pleasantly sour and sharper finish. As we left, the cows were still happy grazing on grass and lolling around by the creek. And my boys were happily tucking into their chunks of Farmstead.

Post contributed by Rachel Klebaur, owner of Orman’s Cheese Shop.

“Meeting the cheese-makers and affineur’s gives me the assurance that I am selling only the highest quality products and that I am supporting small businesses, like myself.” - Rachel Klebaur