The BUZZ is true! A real live market is coming to Old Towne Orange, and it’s called The Bite Market. Scheduled to open in August, 2010 and located at 162B N. Glassell (right next to Son Light Church), I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with the soon-to-be business owner, Bridget Reilly.

Bridget Reilly, The Bite Market

Here’s what you want to know: The Bite Market is going to be filled with household food staples like eggs, rice and beans. There will also be a small produce section with local produce like potatoes, onions and cucumbers. While there is a theme of ‘staples,’ running through the store, there is a much larger point of differentiation for The Bite and that is that all of the food in the store will be gluten-free, dairy-free and casein-free, organically making many of her products naturally vegan, but not all. In addition, the market will offer eco-friendly paper goods and cleaning products at different price points. She will offer more of these types of products than a Mothers or Sprouts. As you may suspect, the inspiration for this kind of market did not come about randomly.

Bridget herself is dairy- and gluten-intolerant, as well as allergic to soy and her 9-year old son is gluten- and dairy-intolerant. Bridget found that she was shopping at 4 different markets each week just to get the things she needed. There was no ’1′ place where she could get it all AND guarantee that the food she was buying would actually ‘taste’ good. A very important aspect to what she will offer at The Bite is that the food will have made it through 3 taste tests: herself, her son and her husband (who by the way does not have food-intolerances or allergies, so a very good measurement for taste). Bridget had the idea to start this market in October of 2009 and is bringing the store to fruition less than a year later.

I asked her why she chose OTO and she said that she and her husband lived here for many years and she just knew that this would be the place to open The Bite. On the very first day of shopping for storefronts she discovered what was available here and found her location. In addition to her culinary offerings, the Market will have a meeting room where she plans to invite and host meetings on gluten-free, dairy-free, etc topics.

Her motto is ‘We’ve Tasted the Rest – We Like These Best!‘ and that’s what she’ll be selling in her store — The Best!

The Bite Market has a Facebook page, which you can follow for updates and you can also keep tabs by following me at I Heart Old Towne Orange on Facebook.

The Bite Market's Future Location on Glassell

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