Have you been to the Gateway Quarter yet? Vine Street just north of Central Parkway. Some wonderful new stores there, rehabbed apartments for Art Academy students, a brand new energy.
I’ve only been to one of the new and unique stores – Park + Vine, which hosted a meeting of EarthSave, a great vegetarian / vegan group I often attend, a couple of weeks ago.
The store calls itself ‘a green general store – where being green is easy’. And indeed it is! I mostly shop in health food / natural foods places, but still found a number of items I hadn’t seen before. And there’s a wide array – groceries, cleaning products, clothes, health and beauty items.
The store feels great – wonderful sustainable bamboo flooring, lots of light, good energy throughout.
My favorite purchase was a fair trade, sustainably made broom from Thailand. And you can guess what actually made me buy it – yep, there was a pattern in green woven into the broom. It is so beautiful! I really enjoyed putting the old broom in the garage, and hanging this one in the pantry.
When the friend of mine who cleans the house showed up a few days later, her question was ‘Are we really going to use this to sweep?’ And indeed we are. To me, beauty and sustainability belong together – and were so easy to find at Park + Vine!