What's Fabulous: Battery Place Market
If you could design the perfect grocer's, selling just about anything and everything a home cook could want, with a dedication to organic, artisanal, and local foods, the result would probably look like Battery Place Market.
This charming market is located in Battery Park City, a 92-acre planned neighborhood built on what were once land marshes at the tip of Manhattan and isolated from the rest of downtown and the Financial District by West Street.
But thanks to this well designed, fully stocked and well managed small (4,600 square feet) store, there's not much of a reason to leave the 'hood to buy what you need to cook the way you want.
Battery Place Market, located on the ground floor of a high-rise condominium at the corner of Battery Place and 3rd Place, was opened in 2010 and since then has become a neighborhood fixture. At the center of the store is a coffee bar where it's common to see a neighborhood resident pausing for an espresso and a chat with the barrista before getting the day's groceries.
The store's selections are somewhat small but extremely well edited so that while there are choices, they're mostly between better and best. Local sources appear in every category: produce, meats, poultry, bread and bakery, coffee, cheeses, and even sodas. Here is some of what you'll find:
- Bread: Rudi's Gluten Free, Orwasher's, and Sullivan Street
- Coffees: Coffee By Design and Stumptown Coffee Roasters
- Produce: Gotham Greens (raised on Brooklyn roof tops), Satur Farms, plus other organic and conventional choices
- Cheeses: Both local and imports; only cheeses like Parmesan are pre-cut with most cut to order; the store makes its own mozzarella
- Charcuterie: Cured meats and smoked fish with producers including LaQuercia and Trois Petit Cochon
- Bakery: Local baked goods from Pie Country, Pie Corps, donuts from Brooklyn's DOUGH "We Fry In Bed-Stuy," Ceci Cela, and others
- Meat, Game and Poultry: Eberly Poultry, American Kobe Beef, D'Artagnan
- Seafood: Fish and shellfish from local fishermen
- Beverages: Soft drinks, mineral water, beers (including many local and small producer beers and ales)
- Grocery: full selection of pasta, canned goods, grains, spices, condiments and sauces, cereal, baking supplies, pet food, ethnic ingredients, dried fruits and nuts, candy, and more
Prepared Foods
The store makes breakfast, lunch and dinner and there's a full-time chef, Robert Sckalor, in charge of it all. Daily offerings include a substantial selection of gluten-free dishes and they also do catering. All their menus, including the daily fresh meat offerings, are at the store's website and prepared foods can be ordered on-line from Seamless Web (there's a link right on the home page of the store's website.)
The Details
- 77 Battery Place, between 2nd and 3rd Place
- Telephone 212-786-0077
- Open 7-days a week, from 7:00 am to 9:00 pm
- Free delivery to the neighborhood
- Prices are what might be expected for a store that offers so many high quality choices but they are completely competitive with stores like Whole Foods
While the store makes familiar use of social media like Twitter and Facebook, it's really the kind of place where you can have a real relationship with a group of dedicated food purveyors. If you live in the neighborhood, go take a visit. If you live elsewhere, we can only hope that this market starts to expand.
