After being named Whiskey Magazine’s 2017 American Craft Producer of the Year, Sons of Liberty Spirits Co. wants to expand its footprint from South Kingstown to northern Rhode Island.
Owner Mike Reppucci is particularly interested in Eat Drink RI LLC’s Central Market – a proposed retail center on the Providence Harbor where the public would be able to gather and experience the best of Rhode Island’s small food-production businesses.
In its nearly eight years, Sons of Liberty Spirits has expanded to 24,000 square feet, said Reppucci. He envisions a small setup that would focus on “brand building and [be] educational” in the market.
In addition to expanding his customer base, Reppucci sees a benefit from Eat Drink RI’s vision for both Rhode Islanders and tourists.
Eat Drink RI owner and founder David Dadekian agreed the market would be “an asset” to the growth of such small businesses as Sons of Liberty Spirits and others by providing a new platform to access the public.
Central Market was the focus of Dadekian’s successful application for a 2014 Rhode Island Foundation Innovation Fellowship. It differs from what’s currently available, he said, because it will highlight “the bounty southern New England and Rhode Island has to offer” and create a platform to interact with small businesses in a public space that includes a ferry terminal.
Shopping Central Market, he said, will be “a little more expansive an experience than going to a grocery store.”
Calling it a “pipeline to the consumer,” Dadekian said many of the small companies who got their start in local incubators, including Warren-based Hope & Main and Pilotworks Providence, “need retail space and we would offer that.”
Dadekian applauds Hope & Main’s ability to help establish small food producers – by the incubator’s count it launched 92 businesses in 2016 and 2017 combined – but he would like to provide the next step.
‘We want something people can go to every day.’
DAVID DADEKIAN, Eat Drink RI owner and founder
“Hope & Main has a great model, their weekly market puts these companies in front of consumers, but we want something people can go to every day,” said Dadekian.
Providing a path to “a different market or the greater masses,” said Hope & Main Executive Director of Operations Luca Carnevale, is a beneficial opportunity for Hope & Main members, adding he does not view Central Market’s commercial retail space as competition.
Carnevale sees a gap in the state’s food-production economy as it exists today, without the Central Market. He finds there is a lack of “infrastructure for specialized processes,” which he said is inherent to food production, and feels Dadekian’s project will provide an “intermediary” space for companies that have outgrown the incubator’s facilities but are not yet ready to invest in the building of their own production spaces.
What’s keeping Reppucci and other local, small food businesses from accessing such an opportunity is a multiyear development process currently led by the R.I. Department of Environmental Management.
In 2015, Dadekian was the sole entity to supply a request for proposals on the 1.7-acre property – Providence’s 25 India St., the site of the former Shooters nightclub – that has remained vacant since 2000. Since then, he has continued to work with the state to negotiate a lease.
In a late March statement, DEM spokesman Mike Healey said 60 percent of the design was complete and they expect “within the next 60 days” to submit plans for regulatory review by Coastal Resources Management Council, DEM Water Resources and Army Corps of Engineers, among others.
Healey added: “DEM continues to be excited about the proposal by Eat Drink RI for a food hall and its commitment to the Shooters site.”
While the state may be progressing slowly, as characterized by Dadekian, he says there is no lack of interest in the project – especially after Eat Drink RI’s full capabilities were demonstrated when, in six months, the company raised $123,656 from 604 backers through Kickstarter to fund a second food-related project, the West Park Food Hall, in Providence’s Smith Hill neighborhood.
The West Park Food Hall hit capacity with 13 tenants signed on as of late March, said Dadekian.
“I don’t think there’s any maliciousness” in the pace the state is moving in developing the Central Market, said Dadekian, “but it’s painfully slow.”
Much of the time since Dadekian applied for the Innovation Fellowship has included research into the impact of community markets in other cities across the United States. He cited a March 2014 Project for Public Spaces article, which details the community-building nature of such public, food-related spaces.
Reppucci, who knows the power of these spaces well, called them “destinations.” Once a resident of London, he frequented Borough Market – a wholesale and retail food market in the city’s Southwark neighborhood that dates to the 12th century.
“For a small business, it’s hard to attract people to your location,” he said. “A shared market allows multiple businesses” to draw people to a central place – Eat Drink RI’s Central Market is a “no-brainer.”