When it comes to The Country Meat Co. Marketplace, husband-and-wife team Tennel and Chanel Bryant lead with intention. While they didn’t plan to hold their grand opening on the same day as a nationwide economic blackout on corporate businesses, Tennel says opening during Black History Month was on purpose—to be part of history.
The Bryants did just that. A community that had been a food desert for 16 years has Greater Cincinnati’s first full-scale Black and independently owned grocery store located inside of the Avondale Town Center. The Country Meat Co. brand aligns with the Bryant family’s intent to deliver the best possible product. And because customers already associate the brand with the family’s butcher shop at Findlay Market, Tennel says, when people think of “country,” they think of “freshness.” “We want people to realize, when it comes to meat, people always think of ‘country,’ ‘farm-fed,’ ‘great quality,’ not that processed stuff,” he adds.
As seen on social media, the impact of the store’s February 28 grand opening was immeasurable, as lines spun around the block for days.
“They told me that we were beyond blessed and that we were superheroes for bringing a store to Avondale where no one else would do it,” Tennel explains. “When everyone else turned their back on Avondale’s community, we decided to step up and do it.”
And as Chanel says, it’s more than a store—it’s a destination. You can duck in and grab a beverage from the coffee and smoothie bar or pick up a bouquet of fresh flowers, which come from a local Black-owned florist. Beautiful produce and locally sourced meats will excite home cooks, or they can pick up a meal to go. During warmer months, patrons can enjoy meals and cocktails on the patio.
As far as the store’s Zen-like design, Tennel describes it as an inviting mix of contemporary and traditional textures. “We wanted it to be this store we could pick up and put in any neighborhood,” Chanel says. “It can go in a Hyde Park, it can go in a Mason, it can go in a Montgomery. We really thought it out.”
She adds that they wanted it to feel upscale without making customers feel like prices would be out of reach.
Clearly, prices haven’t kept people away because the couple is busy replenishing what’s been sold. A week after the opening, Chanel was on the phone with a vendor reordering coffee and cups that were out of stock. “Everything has to be restocked,” Tennel says.
At the annual Neighborhood Summit last month, Cincinnati City Council Vice Mayor Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney presented the Bryants with a community award. In her remarks, she mentioned how there were so many people at the store when she went two days in a row that she didn’t get to shop. She said The Country Meat Co. remained open an extra hour during their opening and urged the city to continue that energy and keep going back.
The store’s long-awaited rollout took about three years to complete.
“Some of the challenges were funding,” Chanel explains. “Also, things that kind of went haywire when we were getting ready to open on the construction end and equipment end, and then just trying to just make it be perfect.”
And because they were set on opening a store that aligns with their brand promise of quality, Tennel recalls the people who told him his vision was too broad. It wasn’t unfinished “white box” construction, which Tennel says is often the way new stores look in underserved urban communities.
“People told me to quit,” he recalls. “They said, ‘Avondale doesn’t deserve a grocery store. You’re spending too much money on decor, and you could just give ’em a white box and walk away.’”
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MATOSE VISUALS
Early skepticism may stem from distrust that Black businesses could survive in Avondale Town Center, which is centered in a historic community that’s overcome decades of setbacks. Among them was white and Jewish flight in the 1950s, redlining, two separate generations of civil unrest, and the ever present stigmatization from crime.
Strategies toward revitalizing Avondale date back to 1971. With its sights on building the city’s first Black-owned shopping center, the Reading-Rockdale Cluster Development Plan envisioned a commercial hub with a barbershop, department stores, a bank, roller rink, bowling alley, and a grocery store.
In 1982, Avondale Town Center broke ground with the backing of former NBA MVP Oscar Robertson and his Cincinnati Royals teammate, Jack Twyman, who oversaw Dayton-based food distributor, Super Food Services. When the shopping center opened a year later, things looked hopeful as stores like Payless ShoeSource, Rite Aid, and a Black-owned bank moved into the 40,000-square-foot mini mall. Cecil Burlew, Gale Jackson, and Lucien Garrett—all of whom were Black—owned the IGA.
When the IGA closed the first time in 1986, then-Cincinnati City Councilman J. Kenneth Blackwell told the Cincinnati Enquirer that Garrett and Jackson had been victims of high interest rates. According to the Enquirer, the store reopened months later under white ownership, Frank Shipp and Dan Russo, who owned the Race Street IGA location in Over-the-Rhine. City leaders and residents demanded they hire a Black manager and ramp up security. But by April 1992, Avondale IGA closed for good. Aldi’s served the neighborhood until it closed in 2008, a void that impacted residents without transportation.
This history of comings and goings is why the community is rooting for the Bryants to succeed. Surrounded by other Black-owned businesses, The Country Meat Co. is part of Avondale’s $46 million mixed-use development that includes casual dining choices like Zola’s and Saturday Morning Vibes Cereal Bar as well as a laundromat. The vibrant 78,000-square-foot complex gives Cincinnatians a myriad of reasons to visit Avondale, and the Bryants are happy to be one of them.
Tennel remembers his late grandfather’s advice: Keep the faith. “When you believe, it will happen,” he says. “And despite all the naysayers telling me to walk away, we overcame all that noise. History was made and now the train is just now getting started.”
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