Bed-Stuy Farm Fresh Grocer Edged Out By Car Owners Finds New Spot

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — Popular Bed-Stuy farm-fresh grocer has found a new location in the neighborhood after being forced out — in part — by fanatic drivers furious over him occupying a single parking spot one day a week.

The move forced the farm-stand, called Mitch's Provisions, about a mile away from his former location in front of Bed-Vyne Brew, to find its new home at 147 Lewis Ave, near Lafayette Avenue.

"I would have really liked to have stayed on Tompkins with the incredible commercial activity and culture that is on that block," says Mitch Bloom, founder and namesake of Mitch's Provisions.

Since the start of the pandemic, Bloom has been bringing farm-fresh produce to Bed-Stuy residents from his twice-weekly farm stand.

While similar to a CSA — short for Community Supported Agriculture, where buyers can order farm produce ahead of time and pick it up at a location — Bloom said he wanted to make the same quality food accessible without the time and financial commitment, something he realized as he trudged to collect his own CSA box early on during the pandemic.

Bloom, 36, a Bed-Stuy resident who has years of working with food and studying food security, decided to set up shop in front of Bed-Vyne Brew, with whom he had a past working relationship, and sell fresh farm produce from popular local farm collectives like Lancaster Farms, Hudson Harvest and Farms2Tables once a week.

"I was inspired by all the other operators around me," Bloom said, "of this like kind of scrappy New York attitude of like: 'I've got something that I think can work and I'm going to show up and I'm going to do the work.'"

Once a week he showed up at 8 a.m. to get ready to set up his stall for an afternoon of sales. Another day of the week, he sold — and still sells — in front of the Brooklyn Waldorf School at Calver Place and Jefferson Avenue.

Bloom said a strong community blossomed from his Tomkins Avenue location. And business boomed, with sales increasing nearly 30% each year.

But a number of changes, including irate drivers, forced him to uproot his veggies.

Most people in the neighborhood, Bloom said, were glad to have a convenient and consistent place to get farm fresh produce.

But not everyone, Bloom recounted.

"There were a handful of people around that specific corner," Bloom said, "who were very adamant that parking spaces on residential streets should not be used for any commercial purposes."

He said efforts to talk with one of the drivers to see if they really felt that "a parking space is more valuable than truckloads of farm-fresh foods on the corner once a week," Bloom said.

The man became enraged and threatened to punish anyone "who is arrogant enough to act like they own any parking space," according to Bloom.

The space outside of Bed-Vyne was also used by acclaimed jerk chicken spot, Wadadli, who found so much success that they moved to an indoor location around the corner.

But that meant the reserved parklet, where Wadadli normally left their equipment set up all week, went away, forcing Bloom to try and coordinate with sympathetic neighbors to play musical (car) chairs to help him claim space to bring fresh food to the neighborhood.

"I would text them in the morning to ask if they could move their cars," Bloom said of the farm-friendly residents. "It worked about 50 percent of the time."

On top of that, Bed-Vyne started to use their own outdoor space more, where Bloom kept his equipment, as pandemic restrictions eased and people started to go to bars more, forcing Bloom to make numerous trips for two extra hours in and out of their narrow, aged basement every Wednesday morning to prepare.

While he expressed gratitude to Bed-Vyne, calling it an "honor" to work with them, Bloom felt it was time to find "greener" pastures.

Now Bloom says he is happy to be operating two days a week again.

He hopes the customer base he worked hard to cultivate slowly moves over, as he said things have been slower on the less busy Lewis Avenue.

Bloom said he loves running Mitch's Provisions because he loves the "curiosity that people have" around what food is available locally.

"I just enjoy being everyone's 'farm bookie,'" he said.