Greyline growing pains: Fire marshal shuts down some food options in Julietta Market
It’s summer and Lexington’s newest foodie attraction, the Greyline Market at Loudon and Limestone, should be cooking on all cylinders.
But a series of hiccups has derailed the centerpiece of the project, the hot food stalls, in the Julietta Market inside the former bus terminal turned small business hub on the North Side of town.
It’s been a setback for the 65,000-square-foot, $5 million-plus Greyline Station project, which is envisioned as a food hall along the lines of Cincinnati’s Findlay Market, as well as an economic engine for the North and East End of Lexington.
The new director of the Julietta Market project said they are working solutions but tenants say they are scrambling after the Lexington Fire Marshal’s office in June ordered at least one food stall, Soul To Go, to shut down and others to stop cooking some items.
“I was just so excited to be a part of the market, then I was open for two days, and they came in and shut me down because of the ventilation,” said Sabrina Booker, owner of Soul To Go. “I felt like they should have figured that out before letting me open.”
In fact, there were two problems: None of the food stalls had certificates of occupancy from the city.
Lexington Fire Department action
Battalion chief Jordan Saas confirmed that some food stalls were shut down the week of June 15 because they had “no permit or certificate of occupancy to operate fryers.”
Frying generates grease-laden air and that constitutes a potentially dangerous code violation, Saas said. That kind of cooking can only be done with a hood, with fire suppression, to vent the grease-laden cooking vapors, according to the city’s Fire Prevention Bureau.
The fire marshal’s office was forced to take action, Saas said.
At least one other Greyline food business, Wilson’s inside Old North Bar, also was impacted by the order to stop frying.
He said vendors were told they “could resume if appropriate hood or equipment in place, with the approval of the fire marshal’s office.”
No hoods planned for Julietta food stalls
But Chad Needham, developer of Greyline Station, the landlord for the Julietta Market, said that there are no plans to put hoods over the stalls at the front of the open market, which sits inside the former city bus garage under a soaring ceiling with high clerestory windows.
NoLi Community Develop Corp., which rents the space for the market from Greyline, knew that, Needham said. And knew that that kind of cooking couldn’t take place there, he said.
“It was never intended on the front end of this project that hoods would be installed on the kiosks,” he said. “That’s why we leased the NoLi CDC more space to have a shared kitchen with a hood.”
But NoLi has not finished its kitchen, putting vendors in a difficult spot, he said.
“We’ve been patiently waiting for them to finish that (shared kitchen), we want food down there,” Needham said. “I’m not sure why NoLi CDC is struggling.”
What NoLi CDC says about Julietta Market
Andrea James, the new executive director of NoLi CDC, said she can’t speak to what happened before she or the current head of Julietta Market came on board but she confirmed hoods are not planned for the food stalls, which opened without proper occupancy permits.
“There was some confusion because the building itself did have a certificate of occupancy,” she said. “Once we learned they were necessary, we walked the market with the fire department.”
She said they are working closely with vendors to find solutions “and resolve any issues or confusion within the guidelines of the leases they signed.”
Overall, James said, “We are thrilled at the success of the market, how well it’s being received by the community and the variety of options, products, services and food available Thursday through Sunday.”
Adina Tatum, director of Julietta Market for NoLi CDC, said Soul To Go was the only vendor shut down entirely, “because the majority of the menu was deep-fried stuff.”
The other stalls have been able to open with permitted equipment, she said.
James is new to her roles, replacing NoLi CDC executive director Kris Nonn, who moved to Tennessee before the pandemic. And Leannia Haywood, who until recently was NoLi CDC’s director of small business development and mentoring, left in May.
Nonn and Haywood declined to comment.
The 23,000-square-foot Julietta Market grew out of NoLi’s popular monthly pop-up Night Market as a way to give budding North and East End entrepreneurs and artists a permanent indoor year-round venue. Julietta Market officially opened with Greyline Station in December, with 60 small business kiosks, 20 pop-up spaces, seven food stalls, a community art gallery and more.
Most of the market, like most of Greyline Station, is occupied and drawing crowds, particularly on weekends.
But one key component of Julietta Market is still unresolved: The shared kitchen.
“It’s a new concept,” James admitted. “This is innovative but very complicated.”
James said that right now they are still figuring out how to make it work.
“We’re working daily to strategize a plan for success for the shared community kitchen to allow for adherence to the grants and the sponsors, the supporters who have funded the kitchen as well as to adhere to the expectations of original intentions, while taking into consideration anything new that needs to be address with in that kitchen space,” she said.
Shared kitchen promised
Booker, of Soul To Go, said when she signed her lease the kitchen space was understood to be part of the package although it wasn’t spelled out in the lease.
“When I signed my contract they had me list the items I was going to be selling,” she said of the menu of fried alligator bites, fish, pork chops, wings, burgers and fries. No one at Julietta ever told her that wasn’t going to work, she said.
“Now they want me to revise my menu, go from 10 items to three, and I’m just not going to do that,” she said.
Ashley Smith, who leases one of the food stalls, said that NoLi CDC’s lack of action has “derailed” her business too.
Smith, who is the co-founder of Black Soil, also operates the Ag Credit Food Demonstration Kitchen, where last month chef Angelia Drake was told by the fire marshal to stop offering hot food and only sell salads and sandwiches.
Smith expressed frustration at “poor information and oversight at Julietta Market. ... We were supposed to be able to cook. That’s the purpose of a food stall.”
She said they’d had a big seller in salmon croquettes but have pivoted to box lunches.
“It was a huge blow to not be able to serve hot food,” Smith said.
The shared commercial kitchen “was supposed to be a resource for small, under-sourced businesses. That kitchen is still not done, and that further adds to the complication and frustration.”
Natalia Tejera, who has the Natalia’s Pastry Shop stall, said she was told to stop frying empanadas. So she’s pivoting, cooking them in a commercial kitchen offsite for now, hoping the one at Julietta is coming soon.
Another would-be kiosk tenant has moved on from the Julietta Market altogether after never being able to get his stall off the ground.
Kirk Belcher, owner of Pojo’s Pop Station, was hoping to open in Julietta before last Christmas. He’d planned to expand from specialty popcorn and snack mixes to corn dogs, chili dogs and more, and was told he would be able use the shared kitchen to prepare them.
But after months of delays this spring he was told he’d have to sign a new lease and then in June, Belcher said, he was told he was out.
“They told me they did not want to do business with me,” he said.
Tatum, director of the Julietta Market, said the Pojo’s lease “never really started.” She blamed a lack of communication.
“We finally decided we had to move on to someone else,” she said.
What’s open at Julietta Market, Greyline Station
Besides the Ag Credit stall, Inebriated Baker, Natalia’s Pastry Shop and Chui’s Ice Cream are open in the Julietta Market, some for weekday lunch and most on Saturday afternoons, Tatum said.
Another food tenant, Da Dawg House, this week moved from a smaller stall into the spot that Pojo’s would have occupied, she said, and another food stall, Bakwala Brothers, will be opening soon to serve Persian coffee and pastries.
Meanwhile, more restaurants are joining the Greyline lineup that already includes Old North Bar, Wilson’s Grocery, Laura Lou Patisserie, North Lime Coffee & Donuts, The Social Vegan, The Breeze Wine Bar, Nourished Folks and B’Juiced: Rise Up Pizza has opened and Porterhouse BBQ is coming soon.
This story was originally published July 16, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
