Ashish Bhandari started shopping at Eddie’s of Mount Vernon a decade ago when his family’s restaurant, Nepal House, opened a couple blocks away. Come this summer, he will be the one deciding what’s on the grocery store’s shelves.
Bhandari, a local businessman with a background in multiple ventures including the Nepalese restaurant, several Baltimore-area liquor stores and a Pulaski Highway car dealership, will be the new owner of the neighborhood market, which is expected to reopen in a matter of months with the help of more than $250,000 in state and local grant funding, as well as a groundswell of community support.
“I started my business, I started my career in [Mount Vernon],” Bhandari, 33, said recently. “I feel like it’s lucky for me, and I want to do something in that neighborhood.”
‘A civic amenity’
Mount Vernon has been without a grocery store since last July, when Eddie’s shut its doors after more than three decades at 7 W. Eager St. The market’s longtime operator Dennis Zorn said he was drained, financially and emotionally, after 55 years in the grocery business, including 23 years as the owner of Eddie’s of Mount Vernon.
Zorn said last summer that the grocery store had been feeling the aftereffects of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the pressures of rising food costs, staffing and theft. For the final six months in business, he and his wife funded the store’s payroll out of their own pockets.
The market’s closure was a blow for Mount Vernon residents, about half of whom do not own cars. Eddie’s had also been a lifeline for senior citizens living in the nearby Chase House apartments.
“I rely on public transportation, and having a grocery store in our neighborhood means it’s convenient for me to shop,” Mount Vernon resident Ana Mabrey said. Without a local grocery option, Mabrey has had to take the bus or hitch a ride to shop for food.
Neighborhood leaders pledged, early on, to find a replacement for Eddie’s.
“A grocery store, like the public library, like a bus stop, is a civic amenity,” said Jack Danna, the president of the Mount Vernon-Belvedere Association, a volunteer-run neighborhood group. “You really have a community when you have these amenities.”
A ‘team effort’
Shortly after learning that Eddie’s would close, Danna contacted Carol Gilbert, a director at the Maryland Department of Housing & Community Development, to see what the neighborhood could do to land a new grocery operator as soon as possible.
Eddie’s had previously been awarded a grant through Project Restore, a state program aimed at filling vacant storefronts, and Gilbert said DHCD could fence off $30,000 of that money to help the next operator with rent.
Danna also reached out to Charlie Duff, the president of Jubilee Baltimore, a nonprofit developer focused on neighborhood revitalization. Together, they applied for more state funding to help pay for infrastructure improvements to the aging Eddie’s building.
In December, they got word that their request would be granted: DHCD was awarding another $250,000 to the grocery store through Project C.O.R.E., which aims to reduce blight in Baltimore City.
“The department is supportive of the project as it will contribute to ongoing revitalization efforts in Mount Vernon and is critical to addressing the neighborhood’s food desert,” Allison Foster, a spokesperson for DHCD, wrote in an email to The Baltimore Sun.
Eddie’s will also receive a grant from the Baltimore Development Corporation to make improvements to the grocer’s facade.
“This has been a real team effort,” said Dennis Richter, the developer who owns the Eddie’s building. “Both in finding a new operator and finding funding.”
Richter spoke with a half-dozen prospective new operators for the grocery store. He said previous plans to move Eddie’s to the Belvedere condominium tower while he converted the market building on Eager Street into a 10-story apartment building were scuttled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We got a lot of ‘nos’ in terms of not being interested,” Richter said. Some grocery operators wanted more parking than the urban lot could offer. But among those who seriously considered the deal, “the interest was really on the existing store and the existing infrastructure,” he said.
In Bhandari, “we found somebody who would be the right type of entrepreneur mindset, at a younger age, having local experience,” Richter said. “Somebody that we think would be successful.”
More produce, local goods
The new Eddie’s owner is already deep into the planning process for the store’s reopening.
This week, he stood inside the empty market, gesturing at bare shelves as he described his vision for the grocery store’s revival. The building was chilly and showed its age: a musty smell hung in the air, and Bhandari had to step over slabs of broken flooring as he walked the aisles. Post-It notes and American flags lingered by the cash registers, mementoes of the old Eddie’s.
If all goes according to plan, renovation work will be starting soon to update the building with a fresh coat of paint, new floors and new shelving. The market’s facade will add larger windows to let in more light.
The focus is on “making the store more inviting,” Richter said. He and Bhandari are aiming for a summertime reopening.
Bhandari is working with Zorn, the former Eddie’s owner, to plan inventory and preserve vendor relationships.
“I’m just trying to study the pattern: what was doing good, what was not so good,” he said.
Though he could have renamed the market, Bhandari decided to purchase rights to the Eddie’s of Mount Vernon name. He thinks the brand recognition will help attract former customers.
“I think it’s an important aspect,” he said. “People already know the name.”
When the store reopens, he plans to add another aisle of fresh produce, and expand on the market’s craft beer, wine and liquor offerings. Eddie’s is one of the rare grocery stores in the state to be allowed to sell alcohol, but Bhandari must obtain the liquor board’s approval to transfer the license to his company.
Bhandari will also remove a lottery ticket window and a salad bar to make way for other additions, such as an expanded international food section and more locally made products. He intends to keep the deli in the back of the store so customers can grab a sandwich to go.
Though he’s involved in several family businesses — and also works as a government IT contractor — Bhandari says he plans to be a hands-on operator at Eddie’s.
“I have six businesses, but I want my face on this business,” he said. “This is where I want to be and what I want to do.”
‘The community was determined’
Word of a new operator has been welcome news to local residents. With the Mount Vernon-Belvedere Association, Danna plans to reach out to the community to weigh in with their hopes for this new iteration of Eddie’s.
Justin Timothy Temple lives a short walk from Eddie’s and was a frequent customer before the store closed. He wants to see the new owner “bring in as many fresh items as possible.”
“I hope they find a way to be able to focus on local produce, as far as what’s tenable, and keep things at a pretty accessible price point,” Temple said.
Paula Fernandes, who lives behind the store, is looking forward to once again having a place to pop in for last-minute groceries and seasonal produce. She hopes Bhandari will consider adding specialty butcher items, too.
Though in the past she often would drive to MOM’s Organic Market or Whole Foods to do the bulk of her grocery shopping, she wants to make a point of patronizing the new Eddie’s more frequently as a show of community support.
“There’s a lot of promise, and some nerves,” she said. “When this store opens, people like me, who drive out of town, need to rethink that.”
Eddie’s revival, possibly within a year of its closure, offers Danna hope that other nearby vacancies could soon be filled, as well. He thinks Mount Vernon’s efforts to rally state and local funds “could become a model for other communities who are food deserts.”
“The story behind this is the community was determined,” he said.
