For quite a few years Renton Chamber of Commerce types were talking up Renton as if it were a southern neighborhood of Bellevue. But the reality was that Renton was just the same gritty working class town it always was. But now it really is different. How do I know?
For one thing: wine tastings. Sure, there were wine tastings in Renton in the past, like when your buddy passed you the bottle of Muscatel in the brown paper bag.
Now, at least three places have wine tastings on a regular basis, and of the highest quality stuff.
And, more icing on the "Renton has arrived" cake, GreenFresh Market has opened.
They are located at 75 Rainier Avenue N, north of Airport Way heading towards Seattle. 206-772-6560. This is Renton's version of Whole Foods, just slightly smaller. It's a very pleasant place to shop, they have an extensive selection of organic items, including organic meat, and a lot of items you'd only see at PCC or Whole Foods. Right now they have generous samples of sandwiches, which are big and yummy and 5.99, on Essential Bread.
What did I find intriguing?
Hemp Protein Meal Replacement, with acai and brazil nuts.
Water Buffalo yougurt. How do you milk a water buffalo? Scuba divers go in and do the milking? Or do they somehow lure the water buffaloes out of the water?
Either way, I bought a container of it, and it's exceptionally good.
GreenFresh Market is a fun place to shop, and clearly not the kind of store that could have existed in Renton even just a couple of years ago.
10 comments:
Thank you for the tip. I'm a sucker for a Whole Foods type of grocery store and can't wait to try it. I ran into problems getting directions on mapquest and found Greenfresh's website, the address is 575 Rainier Ave. N. not 75.
Awesome - I drive by that place all the time and wondered when it would be open. I can always count on you to have the scoop.
My husband discovered your blog about six months ago and we've been reading faithfully ever since. We, too, are displaced Seattle hipsters missing the city, and have been excited by the new things coming to Renton.
Thanks for keeping us posted.
I stopped by there today. Nice guy in produce gave us impromptu samples of some peaches.
Good produce but a bit pricey, similar to Whole Foods and PCC.
On my way there, drove past Fry's. Goodness! Buildings going up everywhere. Now if one of those turned out to be a Trader Joe's ...
Aha! I knew there had to be other "hipsters" driven south by high home prices in Seattle. We moved here about 5 years ago and love living in Renton!
My only beef with GreenFresh is that there is no walking path connecting it to the west hillside forcing us to drive all the way around, when it would be faster for us to walk there through the bushes. Other than that, though, we love patronizing local businesses and hated driving to the PCC in Seward Park. I sure hope they make it!
ive been to GreenFresh and i loved it! really expensive stuff but its so nice to have something like that in Renton. I love wholefoods but driving to bellevue for a couple of bags of food is pretty lame.
Grab some sandwiches from GreenFresh and pop on over to the park across the street near the Renton Chamber of Commerce. Under the shade of the trees you can watch the airport traffic and marvel at the 70' park design.
Don't know if they factored in your list since their address is technically in Kent, but Castle Bridge Winery is a nice little mom and pop windery with decent wines. The people who run the place are just as much reason to go as the wine and the wine is not bad.
They can be found in an office complex at 7645 S 180th St. (look for the wine tasting sign) and they are open until 7 most nights.
Hi! I'm so glad you all are here! This blog is great. The best thing about greenfresh, in my humble opinion, is the local organic milk in big ol' glass bottles. Happy! I will bookmark this blog.
I just happened to be driving by this past weekend and found that the place was closed down. One more victim of a bad economy, I guess.
I don't know if it has arrived. But I'm a newbie to the area, sort of and have yet to get my bearings. Have not found the restaurant scene to be what I'd like, I'm super picky - which is why I read the blog every few months or so.
It would be nice if besides restaurants someone would start a few different topics on things unique to Renton. Not sure what those things would be but that's why I'm asking.
IT's 4th of July tomorrow and I'm not looking forward to the obssesion with Coulon Park visitors seem to have. Last year there were HOARDES. Few police and young thugs harrassing the cars that were trying to get down Lake Washington to their homes. My car was pelted with rocks as a long line of traffic snaked around stopping at the tracks and stopsign. A huge group of people were jumping in out between the cars, yelling and carrying on and acting in an unruly manner. Hope this year would be better. This year they are suppose to shut down Lake Washington between 10 and 11:15 pm so when my husband gets home from boeing he cant get to the house.
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