Eli Heads East, Again
The New York grocer hopes to revolutionize the Amagansett Farmers Market and beyond.
by Geraldine Pluenneke

“We’re outside the box,” says John v.H. Halsey, president of Peconic Land Trust. “Eli Zabar is outside the box, too. He’s willing to try anything toward our goal for local and regional foods. I’m blown away by his energy. His efficiency.”

And so it was in mid-July that Zabar, the iconic Manhattan food merchant, signed an agreement with the trust to operate its most recent conservation achievement, the Amagansett Farmers Market.

“It’s the next step in my life’s work of selling things that taste good,” says Zabar of the union of the two entities—profit and nonprofit—and their common vision of supporting local agriculture. Zabar’s imprimatur on East End agriculture is bound to extend far beyond the walls of the beloved ramshackle market, an Amagansett institution. He hopes not only to reinvent the underused farmers market—more a place to sip coffee and watch cars than a farmers market—as a model of how grocers can become a beacon for all the farmers, fishers and food makers that comprise a food community.

Zabar has the track record. He’s used freewheeling ideas before to colonize new territory. Over 30 years ago, he broke with his family’s upper West Side Manhattan grocery, Zabar’s, headed East and created several food markets—E.A.T, Eli’s Manhattan and the Vinegar Factory—a major bakery (Eli’s Bread), three restaurants, a cafe, wine shop, ice cream stand, kosher bakery, and 20,000 square feet of greenhouses atop his buildings.

“The more I learn, the more dissatisfied I am with the level I’ve gotten to,” says the tireless grocer, often spotted roaming his stores in monogrammed white shirt and shorts. Ten years ago, his dissatisfaction with the quality of certain produce, particularly winter tomatoes, became the motivation “for growing things myself in my own mini farm-world up there in my greenhouses.” His ideas then raced past greenhouses. “There weren’t enough of them.”

He thought of buying East End land and farming. “It was just too difficult to do, because I need to supervise everything I do. And I couldn’t possibly be out there supervising.” Then came the land trust deal. “Now I could have a market, surrounded by farmers who were farming, and I could work with them. Maybe we could seed the farmers financially—paying them in advance for something we might be able to use.” Not unlike the way community-supported-agriculture members pay farmers for their weekly produce before the season begins.

But, as the East Hampton Star recently reported, some locals have cried carpetbagger, charging Zabar’s management of the market will be another example of a monied Manhattan merchant carving out a presence in the Hamptons. Neighbors, like Charlotte Sasso, owner of Stuart’s Seafood in Amagansett and Claws on Wheels in East Hampton, feel betrayed by a transaction that involved a not-for-profit and the town but left little time for public input. “We’re all foodies and I have nothing against upscale cheese or commerce,” said Sasso. “But the way this all went down just doesn’t sit right. We may live in the country, but we’re not rubes.” Whether or not Zabar will turn out to be the innovator he appears to be will no doubt be played out at his cash registers—green bean by green bean.

As customers fill the reopened Amagansett Farmers Market this August, they’ll find a produce section packed with regional bounty—providing it measures up to Zabar’s standards. As in the big city, every flavor will fall under his supervision: “Does it taste good? I’m the sole judge of that. Whether carrots are really sweet and tasty or woody.” There’ll be Eli’s Manhattan specialties, breads, baked goods, soups, prepared foods plus local shellfish, cheeses, preserves, perhaps even a special line of products
under the Peconic Land Trust label. In a way Zabar himself is local. His wife, Devon Fredericks, was a founder of Bridgehampton’s Loaves and Fishes, and they have a house here.

His ideas tumble forth: A real farmers market—outside stalls staffed by local farmers four or five nights a week, perhaps 5 to 7 p.m., to supplement local produce inside. If not this season, then the next, a raw bar of local shellfish with local white wines in the evening. Perhaps several entrées cooked with local farm produce and eaten outside on picnic tables. “We’d like to invite people who have home gardens to set up little tables, sell what they’re growing, perhaps just a few very interesting things.” He may rebuild the farmers market’s dilapidated greenhouse, work with the land trust’s nearby Quail Hill Farm, even grow wheat on the East End to mill for his breads.

Little is wasted in Zabar’s world. Heat from his Manhattan bakery warms the greenhouses above it. Produce culled from grocery store bins at day’s end is transformed into dishes prepared only with fresh ingredients and organic or nonindustrial eggs, and sold the next day. Amagansett will become part of this loop, with foods trucked in from the city until there is time to create its own kitchen. Perhaps he could act as a safety net for East End farmers buying unsold produce to recycle as prepared dishes.

“The timing couldn’t be more right,” says Halsey, thrilled to count another New York food icon as an ally. “It’s not enough strictly to protect land. We need to keep it in production. Knowing where your food is grown, and who is growing it is an idea that’s really taking off. There’s a synergy. Farmers markets, farm stands, CSAs, Slow Foods, food security issues, transportation costs. The circumstances we’re facing in practicality and security as a country are forcing people toward eating locally.”

Still, the $5.5-million purchase of buildings and 9.33-acres of land from the market’s founder and former owner, Pat Stuck, simply wouldn’t have happened without a local angel, Maggie de Cuevas, who waited as negotiations dragged on for four years. To raise money for the purchase, de Cuevas sold development rights to part of her Stony Hill property to the Town of East Hampton. Then, at the closing, the town simultaneously purchased the development rights on 7.56 of the 9-plus acres. Peconic Land
Trust, which has an operating agreement with Zabar until 2011, will lease the property from de Cuevas.

Farmers and shoppers alike will be watching as the collaboration develops. “There’s no road map,” says Zabar. “You end up in some very interesting places when you don’t have a road map. We are only limited by our imagination, our energy and the manpower.”