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What Green City's Permanent Space Means: Interview with Tish Steele
- Bob Benenson
- 12 minutes ago
- 9 min read
Just seven months into tenure, market's executive direct makes big impact
Local Food Forum reported Friday (January 9) that Green City Market — a leader in the Chicago region's farmers market community since 1999 — has closed on a building that, when renovated, will provide a year-round space for the food non-profit's activities.
The space is located at 2457 West Montrose Avenue in Chicago's North Center community (near Lincoln Square). And while the program and design planning is still in its early stages, Green City's announcement states that its new permanent home will "deepen its support for farmers, food access, education, and community connection," adding, "Planned uses include winter and shoulder-season farmers markets, educational programming for youth and adults, and space to support farmer and food producer infrastructure."
The Montrose space will supplement the Green City's already established seasonal markets: its spring-through-autumn outdoor markets at its flagship location in Lincoln Park and its West Loop satellite location, and its indoor winter market, currently located in the Avondale neighborhood, that is operating on Saturdays through late March from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
I visited the new location on Friday to interview Letisha (Tish) Steele, the former head of Denver Food Rescue who relocated to Chicago and in June became Green City's executive director.
Even before the Montrose development became official, Tish had made an impact as a forceful advocate for family farmers; promotion of a healthier, more sustainable and more localized food system; and the market's role providing greater good food access to those in need through its program that triples the value of their federal food assistance benefits.
During a discussion on the probability of chef demos at the new site, Tish (who was a chef in Denver before she went into food access advocacy) mentioned that there will be a demo at the Avondale winter market on Saturday, January 17. It will feature Sarah Stegner of Prairie Grass Cafe in north suburban Northbrook, a strong advocate for a better food system and a Green City Board member since the market's founding in 1999.
The following are excerpts from the interview:
Q: So we're standing in the brand new space. Does it have a name yet?
A: We do not have a name yet. It will still be related to Green City Market. What we really want to do is include the name of our founder [the late Abby Mandel] in some way that is would be meaningful to her and her family. I'm going to be meeting with her daughter Holly Sherr in a few weeks to talk about this... Holly was on the original committee when Abby first started talking about a permanent home back in 2008, and I want to be able to include her as much as she wants to be included honoring the legacy.
The vision of what Abby had set up is really important to me, and I know it's important, really important to our farmers. Just the whole way that she stewarded this in the beginning, and I want to make sure that we're holding true to that. I'm looking for all of those voices that knew about this from the beginning. It's been a long time coming, and I feel like a lot of voices have probably dropped off waiting for this to happen or navigating different spaces at different times. So I am in the process of finding those people and bringing them back in.
Q: I'm sure it's come up a number of times over the years... Tell me about the process. I mean, you're here and boom. You made it happen.
A: Some things definitely came up. There was the pandemic that I'm sure got it off rails, different leadership at different times. I feel like I came I came in at the right time. I knew about the trust [set up by Abby Mandel before her death in 2008] when I was hired, we talked about it a lot during the interview process and how it was a goal and that it was important. I don't think the Board thought that we would have a property within my first six months here...
This not the first [location] that we considered. We did look at another space that had a similar aesthetic to it, with it previously also having been a plant store, but this one just seemed to be the right place in the right neighborhood at the right time.
And what I really appreciate is, I am new to Chicago. I am new to all of these people that are putting a lot of trust in me and putting a lot of trust in me honoring that vision. And I feel like through the hiring process, we got to learn a lot about each other, and even though I wasn't from here, our values were so aligned. I'm so aligned with Abby's original vision and so many folks who support that... it was something that needed to happen. We could keep putting it off and putting it off, but when I went back through historical documents, this was something that was so profoundly important to Abby and to her family. I felt like this had to be a first priority. And so the Board was like, "Yes, we trust you. Let's do this, and let's get all the voices in the room and hear what this needs to be."
So our vendors have been adding what they would like to see, how they would like to utilize the space, and how it can really help support farmers and increase edible education as well as food access.
Q: Another way in which the timing was good for this is that a lot of farmers markets benefited from the pandemic, which made people a lot more interested in local food and purchasing from local farmers because of the shortages, breakdown of supply chain.
A: During the pandemic, there was a huge push from so many people working in food systems, saying there is a transportation issue. We have food. We need food to get to people. Our local farmers also need to make money. Small local farmers need to be able to make money. We need to be able to create a circular food system within our communities that's going to keep the money there and keep the money flowing.
Now we're out of the out of the pandemic, but also we're in this new space of there's still a lot of trade disruptions. We saw it with the cost of eggs. We see a lot of the problems that can happen from factory farming, how that can taint food in so many different ways, and that causes a lot of disruption for us to continue, for our farmers to continue to be bringing items like eggs that aren't $12 a dozen and are also much cleaner and better for you and the chickens have a better life...
I feel it's important having a space, especially in the city, where people can access that and know that their money is directly supporting the person that they're buying it from and their family, and continuing the flow of these ingredients. I just think that's so incredibly important, and it's so great to see so many people are still coming out to support.
Another thing that I really love is with our triple value we offer for SNAP, which we do through a tremendous amount of fundraising. Folks want to get really good, high quality vegetables that still have their nutrition level and can really nourish them and nourish their family, and to also have that experience of just being at an outdoor market, at an indoor market. I think that's so special to be able to offer that and just to continue to honor people's dignity at whatever place they are in their life...
We're going to have this space here. We're still trying to figure out how it will be navigated in summer months, because we do have our other outdoor farmers markets in West Loop and Lincoln Park. We will definitely be navigating it for winter 2026-27 for our indoor market... Especially with offering different education programs and culinary demonstrations and things of that nature, it's just excited to have something to be a part of.
We're also excited to use the space for conversations. In the past, we've called them sustainable suppers, and we'll probably keep that as well. These will be a bit more of a family style event talking about issues and successes that we're having in our food systems. And opportunity to meet the to meet the makers behind the food, the growers, the folks who are talking about policy and just to really get into those conversations...
My goal with it, and just really where the organization is going, is that we need these to be accessible to everyone. We are so fortunate to have some donors that can give quite a bit. We also have donors and supporters that may be giving at a different level. They might be giving in a way of their time volunteering or their talent, donating, different skill sets that they have. And I want to make sure that everything that we're doing is accessible to the broader community, to everyone that would shop at the market, that we are not pricing people out.
Q: Chicago's local food community is amazing and it's grown so much, even just within the 15 years that I've been here. What we've been missing is basically this, having a brick-and- mortar indoor outlet where people can come and shop on market days. What would be the schedule for this? Is there an outlook that says, "Yeah, we may be an everyday thing at some point."
A: We are still navigating that. You know, we we got the keys on December 23, we're in the process of working with a contractor, talking to lots of different people about what the space what the space needs, how we need to bring it up a little bit. It's not going to be a huge [demolition] or anything in the building, but we do want to modernize some things, and put in a kitchen, things of that nature. And we're still talking to our vendors of what they need, what they want. How can this place serve them?
We don't exactly know what that's going to look like just yet. We have a few things floating around that the farmers, the vendors, are interested in. But at the end of the day, our goal is just to make sure that they're making as much money as they can make, and that the community is getting what they need from it as well...
Something that we've been looking heavily into is having a big walk-in cooler, a place where farmers can use it as an aggregation point. A lot of our smaller farmers sell directly to so many of the amazing chefs around the city. For them to be able to just say, instead of driving around the city, we're going to go to this one point, your order will be here. So that's a really great opportunity to do that as well...
I think traditionally, people would do years and years of feasibility studies to see what is going to happen, how is this going to work? And maybe that's a route I should have taken. But I believe in being bold... This is what Abby wanted to do. I feel like this is literally my job as the executive director to steward that vision forward.
Q: Green City used to have a robust program for chef demos that kind of went away last few years. This the idea of having a kitchen, you will have chefs lining up outside the door, because you'll have kitchen facilities and everything, instead of hot plates and and a little counter about this big to do the prep. That is going to be awesome, and I think it could be a very frequent and potentially lucrative feature for the market.
A: Yeah, I think it's going to be fantastic, and I can go on ahead and share that on January 17 at our Avondale [winter] farmers market, Chef Sarah Stegner [of Prairie Grass Cafe in suburban Northbrook] will be doing a chef demo that day. [Sarah was a founding Board member of Green City Market in 1999 and continues to serve on the Board to this date.]...
Then next week, Chef Rick Bayless [also a founding Board member] and Sarah are coming in to look at this space. We also have Chef Cesar Murillo, who sits on our board, who will be offering some insight into how to best utilize this kitchen, build the kitchen out. And then, Jody Fyfe from the Paramount Group and Devon Quinn from Eden. It's going to be just so great to have all of those folks like be in here and say, "We can do this. We can do that." The chefs love to have that moment of you're not just at your restaurant, you're here, you're in community, and people want to learn something from you. It's exciting to share at that level.