I just got back from Denmark and the thing I was most surprised about is that the country is a food forest. A food forest is when the plants, flowers, and foliage also produce food you can enjoy. As we walked around Copenhagen and the island of Bornholm I could not believe the abundance of blackberry and lingonberry bushes. We stumbled upon people filling up containers of blackberries and picking sea buckthorn berries off of the trees. They offered them to my daughter and she ate handfuls. It was so inspiring and what I hope my property will one day become.

Recalls

Have you been following the news?? It seems like many people have been because the farmers market is the busiest I have ever seen! Veggies are sold out by 9:30 some days, it’s wild but also telling.

First it was the recall on lettuce, than blueberries, Whole foods guacamole that made many very ill, chicken fingers, and now rice! I have trouble trusting the supermarkets and legit wonder if my next bite will make me sick.

This is what happens when we put all of our trust in big agriculture. Big agriculture doesn’t grow food, it grows products for supermarkets in mass quantities from farms and farmers that cannot care about that product. They can’t care about their products too much because they carry so much debt in farm equipment to produce the amount of food that is required of them.

This is why at Common Grocer we are building a local food chain with small farmers. You know who grows your food, we create a system that is outside the one that is currently destroying our soil and planet, and the food tastes better because it’s filled with more nutrients.

I cannot wait to open so we can have fresh food that we can trust and enjoy all year.

Investment/ Store Update

On the investment side we only have $25,000 left in this fundraising round. If you were ever interested this is the chance to get in on being a founding investor of Common Grocer.

On the store side, things are moving. The majority of the construction should be completed by the end next week! Then we have to make things look cozy and beautiful and train the staff. The goal is still to open sometime in October!

Jewish Holiday Brisket

We are pre-selling brisket for the jewish holidays. If you are interested reply to this email and let us know how many people you are looking to feed.

See you soon!

With Love,

Evan Freed, Proprietor Common Grocer

I hope you’re all having a great week! My kids are home from camp and the summer is winding down, and the ceiling is going in today and being painted an awesome color. This all means… that the store opens soon! I have so much anxiety and excitement for whats to come.

This morning while meditating my excitement overtook my anxiety. I saw a store filled with people laughing and excited. Customers speaking with their friends, taking one of our classes, or just sitting and enjoying their cold brew. I also saw our farmers, fulfilled, with thriving farms, having their base needs met and not struggling day to day. And our employees grateful to work in a place where they are respected and loved.

Our store will be a place that makes our town better because of the relationships that are built there, the people we are able to support, and the local food we all share. Common Grocer will be that and we get to start building it now.

Painful Learnings

I learned so much in our pop-up. One of my biggest learnings was about meat and refrigeration. I was speaking with a great customer in the gym this AM and she informed me about some spoiled meat she opened. When I hear those words from any customer my body literally contracts and fills with anxiety. I take it so personally. My goal is to sell the best local freshest foods, so that fact we sold spoiled meat, and that the meat was wasted really hits me.

Meat has been a struggle for me to sell, because of my mostly vegetarian diet and beliefs. It’s also been a learning for me in the way of refrigeration. Our meat comes freshly butchered, cut each week just for us. It often moved fast because the quality is hard to fine elsewhere in town. Working with small farms also means we have to buy full primals, which is a whole section of the animal. At times the steaks moved fast, others not as fast.

And that’s fine because we have freezers. However, the freezer we had was not commercial and was often full causing a few issues. I learned that this freezer did not freeze the meat as quickly as it needed to be and therefore it would sometimes go bad in the process of freezing.

Also, we had issues with some meat because of our fridge. Our refrigerator was struggling to maintain the correct temperature. Whenever it would be opened during a hot day the temp would raise very fast and it struggled to cool. I was unaware that dust would collect on the cooling fan and clog it up causing this issue. So, that up and down temperature really effected the shelf life of the meat. Then when we went to freeze the meat it took too long and that creates some pretty rancid meat.

Writing this is tough. To share our mistakes and ones as serious as wasted meat feels like a gut shot. BUT I am remembering that the whole point of the pop-up was to learn. This was an essential learning point.

Important Takeaways

From this the learnings I took away are to:

1. Set up a monthly cleaning with a local maintenance service to make sure the refrigerators are keeping temp.

2. Keep a temperature log. We will use a temperature reader to record the fridge and freezer temps every hour and record them on the log.

3. Freeze meat in-store starting five days before the best by date, not on the best by date.

If you have purchased any meat from us that was not good please email me and let me know. We will replace the meat once we open.

Opening a business, especially a local small business has it’s challenges. However, learning, pushing through, building something from scratch, and serving the community makes the challenges worth it and actually an important part of the journey.

Enjoy the remaining weeks of summer and see you soon.

With Love,

Evan Freed
Proprietor, Common Grocer

I hope you’re having a beautiful summer. I’m sitting in my back yard right now feeling the breeze and listening to the birds chirp. It feels like quite literally the quiet before the storm.

Construction Update

We’ve had some great progress with the store the past two weeks. Painting starts today, half of the floors are in and stained, bathroom is tiled, plumbing and electric are mostly complete, and the front and back signs are up! If you haven’t seen them in person definitely check it out. I am so impressed with the quality thanks to Chief Graphix.

There’s still about 35% of the project left, including decorating. My contractor, Anderson Co and Designer, Studio Mezzi have been such great partners. I am so grateful. AND the target open date is now early to mid October.

I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but what has been most challenging for us is the town. There are codes we have to meet. Wether I agree with their application or the towns definitions of the code as it pertains to our store doesn’t matter. The back and forth with the town has increased my architecture budget by $10k to $12k more than expected and construction costs by $20k to $25k. That has been the most stressful part of the project.

However, the increase in costs has allowed us to take on some great new investment partners.

Fundraising update

I am so grateful and thankful for all of our investors and partners. All except for one live in Port Washington and are customers. Including my investment, grants and our town partners, 10 in total so far, we have raised $286,000. I have fundraised many times in my life and this has by far been the most fulfilling and easy round.

With that being said we do have another $45k to $55k opportunity left in this round. The increase in costs from the town, other projects we added like an ice machine and the necessary drainage, and other kitchen equipment has increased our budget by almost double.

So, if you love what were doing and want to become a founding member of Common Grocer please respond to this email and lets chat. Even if you’re not sure if it’s right but are interested in learning more just email me and we can talk through it. I can also connect you with current investors.

I love having the towns support and it makes me even more confident our first location will be success. Also, i’m not sure if I’ve said this before but our goal is to open 3 to 5 locations to help build a thriving local NY food system on Long Island.

Reply to this email or message me at evan@commongrocer.com to learn more.

What I’m currently working on.

While construction goes on at the store. I’m at home writing a lot more processes and manuals than expected. They are pretty awesome if I do say so myself. These documents will help our team start operating with a great base in place.

I’ve also been practicing fermenting foods as that’s something will be doing in store. The fermented beets, and cucumbers have been a hit with my family. I’m currently fermenting watermelon rinds and mushrooms - excited to see how they turn out!

Lastly, my family and I head to Denmark next week. It is a foodie heaven so I cannot wait to share all of the fresh food markets and restaurants we go to.

See you all soon and enjoy the remaining weeks of summer.

With Love,

Evan Freed

Our lamb farmer from Barred Owl Brook Farm is working on a fresh order of lamb this week.

I shared some time ago that Barred Owl’s lamb only graze and forage on local plants that they have all over their farm. A few customers tried the lamb and loved it so much that they have placed some bulk orders for this fresh batch.

If you are interested in ordering please let me know by 2pm today.

Lamb Leg
Rack of Lamb
Ground Lamb
Lamb Loin
Lamb Offal

These will be custom cut so we can order whatever you would like. Speak soon.

With Love,

Evan Freed
Proprietor, Common Grocer

I hope you’re having a great summer! Mine has been kidless, so quiet on that end, but i’m also in the middle of building Common Grocer… so there’s that stress and some excitement. I’m not sure what the feeling is, but it’s usually a general overwhelm.

I don’t love messes it makes me feel, well overwhelmed, and the store is a construction site now aka a disaster. Piles of dirt and concrete from dug up floors, garbage piles, things just sitting and waiting to be installed. I have to breathe and meditate before I go and often after I leave.

Actually during a meeting today I legit turned around and pretended like I was looking at something just so I could do one of the breathing techniques i’m practicing with my teacher. It was necessary!

And then everyday theres something else that arises and a cost that is associated with it. I’m working on not being too attached to things changing and having different outcomes then I expected. Let’s just say this construction project is THE test for that.

BUT the work is moving along pretty well. The plumber is doing their thing and we passed inspection this morning. The electrician finished their rough-in and we are waiting on inspection for that.

Then we start putting up walls, the new floor, ceiling, and so on. We’re hopefully four weeks from finishing the major work!

I’m grateful for the quiet inbetween the crazy. And I am so looking forward to when the store is full of life and community, which will be you all.

I’ve also been working on our team’s culture book and policies. It’s coming out pretty awesome I may say. This is the start of it:

The Common Grocer Culture Book

Local food. Genuine connection. Stronger communities.

This Culture Book is more than a list of policies. It’s a guide to how we work together, care for one another, serve our customers, and support our farmers.

As Common Grocer grows, this Culture Book will grow with us. We’ll continue learning, improving, and building something we’re proud of—together.

I’ve also been in touch with our farmers who are facing a challenging summer of extreme heat and floods. What they do is NOT easy and I am so grateful that they feed us and care for the land.

Thats all here.

Oh, yea, we’re fundraising for the last bit for the store. Luckily, there a lot of interest! However, if you are interested in investing and I haven’t reached out please reply to this email.

Lastly, theres an important protest in town this Sunday. See the flyer below and please come join us.

With Love,

Evan Freed
Proprietor, Common Grocer

I hope you’re having a great start to the summer. It’s been a nice relaxing one for me, but now the work starts because construction began today! We have about a four to five week timeline for the main construction and then need some weeks to fill it with furniture and of course local delicious goodies.

I also started writing the employee training manual today! Things are coming into place and it is so exciting! Below are pictures of day one construction.

Also, during our pre-construction we went over changes the town required us to do, which was more than previously budgeted. We are also expanding our prepared food options and will therefore be getting more food-prep equipment. So, we are raising another $80,000 on top of the $160,000 raised to date. If you are interested in being part of Common Grocer let me know!

The investment material can be found in the link here.

Speak soon!

With Love,

Evan Freed
Proprietor, Common Grocer

The next step is a full store for Common Grocer to strut it’s local farm goodies out to the whole town. It’s exciting, but also nerve wracking, like jumping out of a plane.

I’m equally excited to build the community that’s started to come together at 189 Main. I love when friends bump into each other and stay to chat about life. There will be even more ways to do connect at 927 port blvd with our coffee bar and comfy couches, weekly classes, maybe book clubs or other community building stuff.

40 % off Common Grocer Goodies

We need to clean out the store so this is the last call - 40% off whatever you want to stock up on. We still have some yogurt, cheese, butter, steaks in the freezer, and lots of dry goods.

We’re open 10am to 2pm today, Saturday.
Closed on Sunday for Father’s day.

One Question survey

Please take our 1 question survey asking what you’d like to see in the new store:
Click here to take the survey.

Investment

Lastly, I am looking to close out our fundraising round and there is a $20,000 opportunity to get in early. The total raised up to this point is $215,000. If you’re interested or know someone who may be, please reach out!

I’ll be sending store updates about the new store as we have them . Thanks for your support and see you in the fall at 927 Port Blvd.

With Love,

Evan Freed
Proprietor, Common Grocer

We only three days left in 189 Main Street so stock up and help us clean out the store - 30% all CG items to help you do that : ).

We still have hamburgers, ground beef, tofu, veggies, steaks, yogurt, cheeses, rices and a lot more. See you soon!

What would you like to see in the new store??

I put together a one question survey so you can tell us what items you’d love to see in the store. You can suggest items that we have or have not carried in the pop-up.

Click Here to take the survey

Thank you for helping us create the best local market in Port!

Environmental Group for Port HS and MS students.

Lastly, one of our awesome customers leads a group called Transition Town that is now accepting middle school and high school students. They are looking for students who are passionate about the environment and want to make a difference. Common Grocer will be partnering with Transition Town this year on some projects including our partner farms. If you have a student interested send an email to info@transitiontownpw.org.

With Love,

Evan Freed
Proprietor, Common Grocer

Update on the New Store

Our conditional use permits for 927 Port Boulevard was approved at the Business Zoning meeting this past week. That means we just need to wait for the construction permits and then we can begin the stores glow up. We’re getting closer!

So, were in the process of hiring an awesome staff, coming up with prepared foods recipes and ideas (i’ve been loving all of your suggestions), and sourcing all of our vendors to fill the store with amazing local foods. It’s going to be a fun summer.

** Lastly, if you’re interested in joining the team or know of someone who maybe reply to this email and let me know!

20% off the entire store

It’s time to clear the store out fully. So, we’re giving 20% off (25% off on freezer meat items) until we close on June 20th as a thank you for your support these past nine months and so we can sell it all.
*Little Hippie sourdough and granola are full price.

Full List of what’s arriving

See you all soon for the last Sunday!

With Love,

Evan Freed
Proprietor, Common Grocer

Good morning. We have one week left for our pop-up at 189 Main Street. This thing I dreamt of creating has put roots into the soil, been watered by you all, and grown into so much more than I could have expected. There have been lots of learnings along the way and there will be a lot more ahead, but the goals are still the same. That is to:

1. Support local food systems that distribute wealth and resources to local farming communities.

2. Build a community that cares for one another.

3. Enjoy good food that does good for people and the planet.

Investment

We possibly need another $10k to $20k in investment. If you’re interested reply to this email or come into the store to discuss.

This Weeks Local Food Haul

Spring (or should I say summer with these temps) has been doing it’s thing and a lot more produce is available than usual at this time of the season (we can talk about the cons of that in person.) The highlights this week are:

• The mare de bois strawberries you all have been loving - they are special imo.

• Newly added purple and yellow snow peas

• Agretti - I have never tried it but google says it’s “A grassy and tart green, similar to spinach but without the metallic bitterness. It evokes the taste of the Mediterranean coast.” The mediterranean coast in your mouth… excited to try.

• New chocolate and maple milks from a new local dairy farm

• And fully grass fed grass finished steaks from KZ Farm.

See you soon,

With Love,

Evan Freed
Proprietor, Common Grocer

It’s wild that we’ve been at Snack & Designs for almost 9 months. What started as a small test has blossomed into a community and special place for mind blowing delicious and fresh food from local farms. I have connected and developed relationships with more people than I ever would have expected. I mean with 4,363 sales since October 5th 2025… that’s a lot of interactions.

BUT now it’s onto the next chapter. For Common Grocer to open with a fully trained team ready to serve you all and an abundance of beautiful local foods we need to shut down the operations at 189 Main street and focus on 927 Port Washington Boulevard. You guys have luckily made closing a necessity because you love what we have and come in droves!

So, Saturday June 20th will be our last day (the day before father’s day).

How to get what you love before we close down 189 Main

I know many of you are sad and have asked, “What can we do while your closed???” We’ll there are a few things.

1. Stock up and freeze the items you love!

   1. I am doing this for my family! We’ve started to freeze meats and will be hoarding the yogurt as we get close to June 20th

2. Place orders with me

   1. If there are certain items you want to get before we close please let me know which item and how much. The chicken and beef last two to three weeks in the fridge when it arrives because it is so fresh!

   2. Order the items for the last week of pick up, keep what you need in the fridge and freeze the rest.

3. Go to the Port farmers market

   1. You can support local farms and makers at Ports Saturday farmers market.

Our New Location

We will be located at 927 Port Washington Boulevard. The plan is to open this location the end of September or early October, so stay tuned.

Today’s Delivery

Open 10am to 4pm

Friday Delivery

With Love,

Evan Freed
Proprietor, Common Grocer

New Lamb

We have a new lamb produce joining our community of farms called Barred Owl Brook Farm. On BOB they raise Sheep that eat only by foraging. This can be done because BOB farm has mix of trees and bushes that creates a forest within the pasture that produce food and shade for the animals and compost for the soil. This practice is called Agroforestry and extremely regenerative.

We bought only a bit of the lamb to try this week so if you’re interested come Friday to grab some.

New Spring Produce

This weeks new produce is the Parisian Carrot and it’s round like a radish The Parisian Carrot is deeply sweet with a light earthy flavor, just how I like them. We also have lots of incredible summer squash, new potatoes, broccolis and more!

Hours

Friday 11am to 5pm
Saturday 10 am to 2pm
Sunday 10am to 4pm

See whats at Common Grocer:

With Love,

Evan Freed
Proprietor, Common Grocer

The fridge is full of new goodies like:
Chicken salad and pork fried rice from 8 Hands Farm
Wings, breasts and thighs from Snowdance Farm
New grass feed beef from KZ Farm
Fresh spring vegetables from Norwich Meadows, Choy Commons, Heermance Farm, Great Joy Family, and others
Goat cheeses from Blue Ledge Farm & cow cheese from North County Creamery.

Come stock up for the beautiful day and week ahead.

With Love,

Evan Freed
Proprietor, Common Grocer

However, getting their produce down to Port was a challenge that we have been working on for months. Luckily, Essex Food hub, a small distributor that works exclusively with local farms came to the rescue.

Essex food hub recently received a necessary grant to build out their cold storage and warehouse allowing them to now act as an essential piece of the local food chain puzzle. The goal has always been to grow and sustain the local food supply chain that includes small farmers growing produce, raising animals, and making foods that sustains the earth and tastes delicious! Essex will help our store be a small part of this growing local food chain by getting all of these local goodies to our door!

New Beef Farm

Thanks to Essex we now get to try out KZ farm. KZ is a cattle farm whose cattle only eat grass and still manage to get marbling in their steaks. I’m excited for you all to try them this week.

Strawberries, cucumbers, summer squash and more

This week also brings a whole new list of spring veggies that grew quickly with the heat and rain combo we recently had. Check out the full list below to see what’s coming to the store!

Prepared Foods

We also had all new prepared foods arrive Fyr & Salt/ 8 hands farm. Chicken Salad, egg & potato salads, pickled eggs, Thai coconut carrot soup, everyones favorite shepherd pie and a lot more. See the full list of what’s arriving below:

With Love,

Evan Freed
Proprietor, Common Grocer

So, luckily our employee Ezra wanted to work this weekend so we are open today from 11am to 3pm. We will be getting fresh produce like asparagus, Chinese broccoli, tak choy, and more from Great Joy Farm and have tons of burgers, steaks and chicken for your memorial day weekend.

Come in today 11am to 3pm to stock up and see you soon!

With Love,

Evan Freed
Proprietor, Common Grocer

We are receiving a delivery of burgers, ribeye, and famous local beef hot dogs from Kinderhook farm! Kinderhook pasture raises all of their animals and is known for being one of the top cattle farms in NY. We are excited to finally work with them.

We also are receiving fresh produce and veggies for the holiday weekend like foraged young spruce tips, great in salads or iced teas, asparagus, morels and more. Stop by to stock up!

25% off all steaks, beef, and chicken in the freezer!

Memorial Day

We will be open today, Friday until 5pm for memorial day.
The store will be closed Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
We re-open Tuesday.

Please stock up for the holiday by the end of today and see you in store or when you all get back.

Full list below

Have a great long weekend and happy unofficial start of summer.

Evan Freed
Proprietor, Common Grocer

We finally have sweet, floral, strawberries from the amazing Norwich Meadows Farm. If you’ve tried any of Norwiches produce prior you know how incredibly tasty it is. So, I am expecting big things from the strawberries.

25% Off!

We are having a 25% off all steaks, beef, and chicken in the freezer sale. There are some beautiful ribeyes, porterhouse, filet, strip steaks and more. Come take advantage of it until this Friday.

Holiday Hours

We are open this entire week until Friday at 5pm.
The store will be closed Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.
We re-open on Tuesday May 26th.

Full list of what’s fresh is below:

With Love,

Evan Freed
Proprietor, Common Grocer

Cheddar Chive Sourdough Biscuits
Sourdough Sticky Buns - Cinnamon and Lemon Curd
Sourdough Baguettes and Boules!

We also have tons of fresh produce like Wild Spinach (Lambs Quarter), the most stunning rainbow swiss chard, fresh carrots, Turkish broccoli raab, asparagus, and lots of other incredible veggies.

See you soon!

With Love,

Evan Freed
Proprietor, Common Grocer

I am writing you from Charlotteville, New York after a day of farm visits. We visited Wild Hive Farm who grind the local wheat and beans we carry, Tivoli Farm, where we get all the mushrooms you love (try the foraged morels this week), and Hudson Valley Fishery for the Steelhead we will carry in the new

store. Meeting with these growers and makers who are passionate about delicious good for us and for our earth food is inspiring as hell. I can’t wait to share the stories and new goodies!

Full List of what’s arriving is below:

With Love,

Evan Freed
Proprietor, Common Grocer

First of all, happy mothers day to all the mom’s. We have lots of new treats to celebrate like locally baked cookies, flower arrangements, and meats & veggies for your family bbq! Come by Saturday and Sunday to check it out.

Hours
Saturday 10am to 2pm
Sunday 10am to 2pm (early close for mothers day)

New Sourdough

My wife is a lemon lover, lemon poppy seed obsessed. If it’s a flavor at an ice cream shop or bakery she will get it! So, when I found out that Liza from Little Hippie makes a lemon curd poppy seed sticky bun I had to get it. My wife doesn’t read emails… so i’m excited to surprise her with it. Come get them before they sell out!

We’re also getting sourdough rye boules this week and rosemary baguettes! All new sourdough goodies and fresh veggies!

See the lists below for whats fresh

With Love,

Evan Freed
Proprietor, Common Grocer