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Food-loving travelers can’t miss these community shops with curated local goods.
We asked travel contributors across the country for the small, independently owned grocers that have captivated them at home and on the road. These are the provisions, pantries, and farm stores that food lovers can’t pass without dropping in to peruse selections of artisanal goods and local produce. Some have snacks and natural wine for picnics and dinner party spreads, some have delicious deli counters, and some specialize in housemade bread and baked goods. Add them to any route on your travels, whether on a road trip or vacation, from East Coast to West.
Related: America’s Must-Visit Farmers Markets, From San Francisco to New York
01 of 11
Riverwards Produce (Philadelphia)
In an era when groceries can arrive at your door with a few taps of an app, Philadelphia’s Riverwards Produce makes the case that stocking the kitchen can be its own simple pleasure. Founder Vincent Finazzo started the business a decade ago, aiming to create “a place for people to exhale from their day,” he says, “to be off screens and think about cooking something beautiful.” The Fishtown market is set inside a restored historic firehouse with a lofty ceiling and arched windows — a space that’s as distinct and considered as what’s on its shelves. Beyond aisles bursting with peak-season produce, find a highly curated mix of new and nostalgic products, from buzzy fermented sodas and Pennsylvania-born Painterland Sisters skyr yogurt to hometown favorites like frozen pierogies from nearby Polish restaurant Mom-Mom’s Kitchen, and Perrystead cheeses made at the urban dairy just a few blocks away. Riverwards has a second Philly location in Old City, with a third planned for Finazzo’s hometown of Detroit. — Regan Stephens
02 of 11
The Farm Shop at Los Poblanos (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Housed in a restored 1930s dairy barn at Los Poblanos Historic Inn & Organic Farm in Albuquerque, the 1,861-square-foot Farm Shop is a tribute to the artisans and agricultural bounty of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Valley. Shelves of the whitewashed shop are stocked with house products — from lavender salve and gin distilled with hawthorn and piñon resin to green chile jam, spicy chorizo, pork bone broth, and green chile sourdough — alongside a tightly curated selection of locally roasted coffee, unpasteurized lavender honey, heritage grains, pottery, blue corn pancake mix, and other regional goods.
It’s the setting that makes this place especially transportive: Sip a lavender latte beside a weeping, berry-laden mulberry tree and tear into a warm apricot Danish made with fruit grown on the property as resident peacocks wander by and freshly harvested lavender is distilled just steps away. Should you find yourself elsewhere in New Mexico, there’s a second Farm Shop Norte in Santa Fe, while the newest outpost opened this year inside Albuquerque International Sunport.
03 of 11
The Culture Shop (Charlotte, North Carolina)
With all due respect, you will find the stinkiest cheese in Charlotte, North Carolina here. That — if you love cheese — is a great thing. If you don’t, I’m sorry. This tiny grocer on the corner has the best charcuterie selection in the city. You can build your own board or delegate the task to the cheesemonger. The Culture Shop is a playground for dinner party hosts, with olives galore, tinned fish, chocolates, and pre-made, refrigerated goodies. Sun filters through the windows of this standalone store and reaches toward the shelves of natural wine, much of which is from the same producers who supply wine to the city’s best restaurants. Don’t miss the budget-friendly wine section, too. — Kayleigh Ruller
04 of 11
The Del Ray Farmhouse Market & Garden (Alexandria, Virginia)
Lined with restaurants, Mount Vernon Avenue in Alexandria, Virginia’s Del Ray neighborhood is a long-time destination for food lovers. It’s here on the corner of Howell Avenue that The Del Ray Farmhouse Market & Garden opened last year, with a flower-filled garden center adjacent to a white frame house. Inside this charming hybrid space, you’ll find a small selection of vegetables, dairy products, bread, and gourmet items sourced directly from local suppliers. Why wait for the weekly farmers market when you can host one every day? That’s the premise at this “farm-to-market” grocery store, so keep in mind that the supply is seasonal and can sell out — not what you’d find at a supermarket chain. Local owners Edea and Jay Portlance, also behind the much-loved hardware store, have transformed this corner into a real community hub. — Mary Winston Nicklin
05 of 11
Purplebrown Farm Store (Peninsula, Ohio)
Inside Cuyahoga Valley National Park, between Cleveland and Akron, Ohio, Purplebrown Farm Store makes a compelling detour from the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail. The former freight depot sits across from the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad’s Peninsula station, offering an easy stop for hikers, cyclists, and rail travelers. Sasha Chetyrkina-Miller and her husband, James Miller, opened the store in 2021 after running a farm stand at their 12-acre organic permaculture farm in the national park.
The name Purplebrown comes from the couple’s wedding colors. Today, the shop gathers produce, pasture-raised eggs and meats, dairy, baked goods, and grocery staples from small producers, with more than 90% of the products sourced from Northeast Ohio. “This is really like an extension of my pantry,” says Sasha. “I’m really just doing the shopping for our community.” What to try changes with the seasons, which is precisely the point. In summer, grab a carton of locally grown blueberries, then browse the cheeses, fresh-milled organic grains, and other regional finds. “We really stick to what’s grown locally by small family farms using really regenerative practices,” Sasha adds. For a portable lunch, the store makes bento boxes for the trail. — Wendy Pramik
06 of 11
The Culinary Room (Lockhart, Texas)
In the heart of Texas barbecue country, The Culinary Room is just as worthy of a visit as any brisket joint. The gourmet grocery and specialty market sits on the corner of Lockhart’s main square, where shelves are stocked with thoughtfully curated pantry finds from Texas and other far-flung corners of the world. Pick up a jar of Fishcer & Wieser jam, smoked pimento cheese from the grab-and-go case, or indulge in a cowboy cookie loaded with chocolate, coconut, and pecans. Don’t leave without tasting what owner Alana Webre calls the world’s first fresh pudding bar, where the impossibly thick banana pudding is the house specialty. Webre made her way to Lockhart after her all-natural queso, Culinary Cowgirls, won H-E-B’s Quest for Texas Best competition, inspiring her to create a retail space where small food brands could be discovered alongside her own. It’s likely you’ll leave with a bag full of edible souvenirs. — Annie Brown Verdin
07 of 11
LA Grocery & Cafe (Los Angeles)
Less is more at LA Grocery & Cafe. Cut the trend fluff, the protein-maxxing, and the eye-candy branding and you’re left with real, good food: fresh produce, local meat, minimally processed pantry essentials. The selection cuts right to the point of why people go to a grocery store in the first place: to stock up on necessities. Here, the produce isn’t just fresh. It’s straight from each week’s farmers market. The store is a shifting, living entity, like the produce (which has cultivated a near-monastic following among private chefs). It also hosts regular culinary pop-ups, like pies from Chainsaw, sauces from Sunny, wine from Jumbo Time, and shrimp from Little Fish. Between the steaming rotisserie and the cooling smoothies, the mini cafe inside is what Erewhon envies. — Kayleigh Ruller
08 of 11
Jericho Country Store (Jericho Center, Vermont)
I remember standing at the counter, barely tall enough to see over it, calling out my order before I’d reached the door — the grocers knew what I wanted from the many afternoons I stopped in on my way home from school. The maple creemee came out swirled high, melting before I made it outside, sticky rivers down my hand faster than I could lick. Jericho Country Store has served this village since 1807, when Pliny Blackman rafted goods down from Montreal to stock its shelves — through the Jordan Brothers, through Gerry and Lil Desso’s decades of “if we didn’t have it, you didn’t need it,” and now under the St. Amour family, who took over in 2002. Today its shelves feature an eclectic mix of essentials, last-minute groceries, fresh produce, and local specialty goods. Walk in and catch woodsmoke off meat curing on-site, meats sliced to order at the deli counter, potatoes hand-punched into fries hissing in the fryer. Grab a Cabot cheddar sandwich, a LaPlatte Angus burger, a cold beer, and — always — a creemee, soft enough to droop before you’ve paid. Two hundred years on, it still feels like the center of town. — Carrie Honaker
09 of 11
The Belted Goat (Fearrington, North Carolina)
In a molasses-speed village outside Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a stroll through The Belted Goat calms the nervous system. Words like jam, biscuit, and honey have that effect. It’s a tiny, sunny space stocked with regional Southern staples and culinary knick-knacks: housemade seeded sourdough, specialty olive oil in local ceramics, pimento cheese, even a dill-pickle dip. Part of the charm is where it lives inside Fearrington Village, a storybook pocket made up of art markets, an exquisite bookstore, friendly people passing through, and the quaint, luxurious Fearrington House Inn. Around the market, actual belted goats roam the pastures. (Note: These are not really goats, but a Scottish cattle breed known for the white “belt” of hair around their midsections.) — Kayleigh Ruller
10 of 11
Farm & Coast Market (Dartmouth, Massachusetts)
Boats bobbing at anchor, leafy streets lined with independent boutiques, centuries-old houses that once belonged to sea captains… The mise-en-scène is almost impossibly atmospheric in Padanaram, a seaside village overlooking Buzzards Bay in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. The center of gravity is Farm & Coast Market, a grocery and restaurant that buzzes all day, from breakfast burritos to clam-chowder supper. Caffeinate with a latte while you browse the adjacent market, brimming with gourmet treats. There’s a dedicated butcher shop, walls of wine, a coffee counter with baked goods, and prepared foods for takeaway meals. The ceiling is designed with a nautical chart, and this maritime theme is reflected in unique gift items like notecards. You can also pick up bouquets of fresh-picked farm flowers. — Mary Winston Nicklin
11 of 11
Modica Market (Seaside, Florida)
I’ve lived in Florida for more than 30 years, and my kids grew up biking the Timpoochee Trail, following the Gulf coast along the Panhandle’s 30A highway. Every spring, once the Seaside Amphitheater’s shows began, those rides had a destination: salt air thick in our lungs, the evenings just warm enough to stay out past dark, tires thumping toward Modica Market. The door slid open to fresh muffins and coffee, cold cases humming with handcut steaks and curated cheeses, ceiling-high shelves filled with wine, floors worn soft under beach sand and flip-flops. We’d fill a basket — shrimp salad (don’t miss it!), crackers, wine, cake with frosting an inch thick — then wobble off toward our grassy seats, picnic blanket bungeed to the handlebars, cicadas swelling as the sun dropped over whatever live performance was on deck.
Since 1989, this family-owned grocery has been the town’s beating heart, run now by the third generation, siblings Carmel and her brother Charles Jr., who grew up stocking its shelves. “Being a local grocer, where people can walk to us or send their kids to pick something up — those are special moments,” Charlie says. Whatever brings you in, the shelves are always stocked for a first-time visitor too — local candy, jars of tupelo honey, Donna’s homemade cheese straws by the register, and a friendly face who will know your name before you leave. — Carrie Honaker
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