Glen's Garden Market

Pin It Now!

Liz and I checked out Glen's Garden Market, located on 20th Street and S Street NW, this past weekend.  After reading an article on DCist, I was excited at the thought of a small speciality grocery store focusing on local food.  In order for Glen's to sell a product, it must be made in one of the states bordering the Chesapeake (DC, VA, MD, WV, NY, PA).   

Grocery stores are a pretty standard fare in this city.  From Harris Teeter, to Safeway, the food available is good enough, but really doesn't inspire. Whole Foods definitely provides a bit better quality food as well as more unique and global offerings. That being said, when I heard that a new small market was coming to the space previously occupied by the Secret Safeway in Dupont Circle, I was thrilled.  

As far as looks go, the space has been completely updated and the effort shows.  From the minute you walk in, you have the option to grab coffee, beer or wine at the bar.  There's even space to enjoy a sandwich that you can purchase from the in-house kitchen (all sandwiches are around $10)!

The gleaming showcases display a wide variety of products. 

We especially loved how all the produce and meats were labeled with where they came from!

Cheese...so much cheese! Definitely wanted to sample all of it.  Great offerings, at good price points.  

Glen's also had a wide variety of meats.  While some were frozen, don't let this detract you from giving them a try.  I've sampled a lot of 'fresh frozen' (as I like to call it) meat products, and the quality is not lost.  Shown below are the fresh meat offerings used for deli sandwiches! 

There is also a large selection of store-made pickled and preserved products. We've never seen anything like this before!

They also have home made soup stocks!

We spent a lot of time looking at all the sauces and seasonings.  

I also really liked this wall of local grains and legumes. 

There were so many options at Glen's that we could probably have dinner inspiration for months before trying everything!  I actually brought home a vodka sauce with home made garlic parsley pasta.  They were both delicious, although the vodka sauce didn't ring true to me--it was more along the lines of a jazzed up tomato sauce.  It lacked the creaminess that vodka sauce is known for.  Still yummy, just slightly mislabeled, in my opinion!  The pasta was SO good.  It's going to be hard to go back to Barilla after eating it.

The other aspect of Glen's that was so great to experience was the staff.  You could tell just how excited each staff member was to be working in the new market, and their mood was contagious. This guy even greeted us at the front door! 

We will definitely be back to Glen's in the near future!