Photograph by Devyn Glista
“The juice is loose. I get to do whatever I want!” Toncia Chavez is, in a word, excited. ETC Produce & Provisions, the thriving farm-centric grocery she’s run with her husband, Estevan, at Findlay Market since 2017, recently expanded to a brick-and-mortar space in Walnut Hills, and the local entrepreneur is bubbling with joy over the thought of eggs. Just regular eggs. “Very conventional, your regular dozen eggs you’d see in a Kroger,” she says.
The notion of buying eggs and other basic essentials in Walnut Hills is, in fact, kind of a thrilling notion. The neighborhood has been without a walkable grocery since 2016, when the beleaguered Kroger, after years of operating at a loss, finally closed its doors for good. Since then, the area has effectively been a food desert, with the closest place to buy groceries a car or bus ride away. Occupying the anchor space in the new Paramount Launch building at the very site of the shuttered Kroger, ETC Produce & Provisions and the Chavezes have accepted the daunting responsibility of feeding a hungry neighborhood.
Photograph by Devyn Glista
Toncia and Estevan first met years ago in Louisville, where she worked as a baker for Maker’s Mark Bourbon House and he worked with parking service companies. The pair was poised to advance in their respective careers but started to feel they were sacrificing essential experiences for potential success. “We never got to see each other,” she says. “I married this man because I loved him, but we were just not enjoying life.”
So they quit their jobs, sold their stuff, and drove a little camper across the country for a year, farming with a movement known as World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. “We learned how to work on organic farms, we learned how to work on conventional farms,” Chavez says. “From A to Z, we learned a bunch of great things and we wanted to bring it back.”
Specifically, the couple wanted to purchase a farm of their own, and with Estevan hailing from Hyde Park (Toncia is an L.A. native), they looked for and eventually found 68 acres in nearby Felicity, Ohio. The farm was less than ideal—a creek bisected the property, with a 100-foot swinging bridge connecting the barn and house—but they set about filling the pastures with heritage-breed chickens, working their way up from 25 birds to around 600. That’s a lot of eggs, and the Chavezes needed a place to sell them. Luckily, Cincinnati is home to Ohio’s oldest continuously operated public market.
Photograph by Devyn Glista
“We started at the farmers’ market at Findlay Market in 2017,” she explains. “I’m a baker by trade, so we baked everything to fill our table. We picked flowers, we picked herbs, we had eggs.” Following two years in the Farm Shed (one of Findlay’s outdoor market spaces), a “primo spot” by the entrance became available and ETC Produce & Provisions officially opened in 2019, selling locally sourced and organic goods to the public. The COVID-19 pandemic boosted their burgeoning home-delivery service exponentially and set ETC on an accelerated, if unexpected, path to success.
The pandemic (and deft acumen) set ETC up for continued success as the Chavezes grew their Findlay Market business to include more than 150 farmers and artisans. If you stop in today, you’ll find everything from fresh produce and frozen meat to bread, meal bundles, and bottled organic condiments. Delivery kept going, too, until mid-2024. Chavez is quick to point out that none of this was necessarily planned, but she’s grateful for how things turned out.
Photograph by Devyn Glista
“You have this idea, just like you have this idea of what your farm is,” she says. “I thought I’d be baking, not managing the store, but I was completely wrong—which I love. Baking is one of my passions, for sure, but hospitality is my all-day, every day obsession.”
A couple of years ago, the Chavezes started thinking about expanding ETC to a second location and approached one of their customers, Matt Reckman of local development firm Model Group, about helping them find a spot. They toured a handful of sites and were about to move on from the idea when Reckman mentioned a long-term project in the works: a mixed-use development slated for the site of the closed Walnut Hills Kroger.
“We were like, Oh my God, we kind of love it,” she says. “We believe in Walnut Hills, and being able to give this community fresh groceries is like a dream come true for us.”
Photograph by Devyn Glista
The years-long wait was perfect, too, as it gave them time to save for (and, ultimately, sell their farm to afford) the expansion.
The years of sacrifice and hard work paid off in October, when the doors to ETC Produce & Provisions in Walnut Hills opened to the community as the anchor business in the Model Group and Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation’s building. The 3,500-square-foot space features fresh meats, rotisserie chicken, yogurt, grab-and-go meals, and tons of frozen foods. ETC features a large food prep area and a number of pre-packed deli items, as well as a selection of beer and wine.
Photograph by Devyn Glista
And then there are the eggs. While ETC will of course carry a range of local, organic products, Chavez understands her commitment to paying farmers fairly for their labor has an effect on consumer pricing. She also gets that being the only Walnut Hills grocer comes with certain responsibilities to her community. And while Findlay limits sales to only local or organic products, in Walnut Hills, ETC can sell conventional items at an affordable price to a neighborhood in need in addition to the higher-end stuff.
“We’re basically taking the ETC at Findlay and putting it on steroids,” she says. “I feel like this is a resurgence of the community, and we’re happy to be a part of it.”
ETC Produce & Provisions, 954 E. McMillan St., Walnut Hills, etcproduce.com
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