Dear Trends Diary,
After our two restaurants, Black Cat and Bramble & Hare, closed on March 16th, we were thrown into entrepreneurial chaos. We transitioned to a farm-to-table grocery store selling homemade food and produce curbside from our restaurants and farmstand, rallying our bartenders and servers to work as greenhouse workers, online store programmers, farmstand staff and delivery drivers.
In early April we also launched Mabel the Farm Truck. It was one of those “hey, wouldn’t it be cool” ideas we have had for years but never had time to try. The idea originated from my childhood memory of the pony-drawn strawberry wagon that rolled through our neighborhood in hot summers in Baltimore. I was always SO excited to see the farmer coming down the street.
We were already in the process of buying Mabel, a 1966 Ford panel truck that once delivered Wonder Bread, from the Boulder County Farmers’ Market, planning to haul produce. Now a new vision coalesced: an itinerant farm truck combining the strawberry wagon with a safe, uncrowded way to buy groceries.
Mabel visits a different neighborhood Tuesday to Saturday, ringing her bells for a growing list of regular customers who can request stops the old-fashioned way—with yard signs out at their curbs—or through the online “Mabelphone,” which provides real-time location tracking and stop requests.
Our business is very different now than it was a few months ago, but we are still helping to feed and connect our community—now, we do it ringing bells, selling bags of arugula, and offering cooking tips and encouragement. It is so gratifying to see customers flag us down, waving and jumping with excitement. Even with masks, we can see the smiles.
– Jill Skokan, Black Cat, Bramble & Hare, and Black Cat Organic Farm
