Photo Friday: Town & Country Markets in Bainbridge Island, WA

Recently Cynthia Brazzel, director of member relations and advocacy for the western region at FMI met with Bill Weymer, CEO and Susan Allen, Director of Town & Country Markets (Central Market) to tour their Bainbridge Island’s Town & Country Market in Washington.

This high-end store emphasizes inspiration for the consumers.  For example, they have an aisle dedicated to flavor, where condiments and seasonings are arranged adjacent to the enormous produce department. There is also a demo kitchen with a couple of chefs preparing featured recipes. Displays in various up-front parts of the store offer with meal suggestions  including a refrigerator case with fresh beef, and packaged bundles of fresh green beans to one side of the case and cabernet sauvignon to the other side with seasonings and bread above the case, all within reach to the consumer. 

At the Bainbridge Island store they are testing a separate quick entrance for their fresh section to attract walk-in traffic from the nearby port where the Seattle-Bainbridge Island ferry drops off. One store entrance is situated by the main parking lot for regular shoppers, while the other store entrance is near to the port and all the fresh counters are in that corner of the store. 

Fun fact: Town & Country Markets also owns an organic farm that belonged to one of the founders, Nagata. They grow vegetables that are sold in their stores and the farm is called Middleview Farms, which is a translation from Japanese of the Nagata name.