The Blue Ridge Grocery, in the former Cigar Shop on Blue Ridge’s Main Street in Blue Ridge, GA; began operations today under the capable hands of Danny Mellman and Michelle Moran.

The space is next door to the couple’s highly successful restaurant, Harvest on Main.

The grocery store is a combined dream of Danny and Michelle and is modeled after, among many places, the Mercat de la Boqueria in Barcelona, Spain.  It’s a bustling space for daily shopping and daily cooking, a space to see, touch, honor and celebrate food and dining.

Two women, one who loves baking and the other who loves making coffee, anchor the grocery which will serve breakfast, made-to-order sandwiches and salads for lunch and all-day snacks.

Local farmers and purveyors will supply the Grocery including a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program for weekly boxes to be picked up; fresh flowers from a local farmer; fresh-from-scratch breads and pastries, baked daily; locally roasted and brewed coffee, and Harvest on Main’s house-cured meats and pickled items.

Michelle and Danny Mellman founded Harvest on Main in 2009, a highly successful lunch and dinner restaurant that showcases local, sustainable food in Blue Ridge and The Cook’s Farm, a downtown Blue Ridge cooking school located on a one-acre model farm to show what sustainable food service production encompasses in the Blue Ridge Appalachian foothills.

The Blue Ridge Grocery is a bakery-café focusing on fresh breads and coffee, community-supported agriculture and fresh, local produce.
 
Chef Mellman is a nationally acclaimed, James Beard-nominated chef who has honed his culinary skills for 30 years, managing and cooking in kitchens from Pennsylvania to Florida, France to Australia.  His wife and partner, Michelle Moran, is a longtime culinary journalist, the former editor of Gourmet Retailer and Gourmet Business, and a professional cook on her own.