Liberty Public Market, a 22,000-square-foot culinary bazaar, has added eight new vendors to its growing list of 30.
The new marketplace, now under construction in Building 1 at 2816 Historic Decatur Road, is scheduled to open in late October.
New entreès on the public market’s menu include Le Parfait Paris, French pastry and bakery; FishBone Kitchen, fresh and local seafood retail; Dessert Smoke, barbecue sauces; Parana Empanadas, Argentinian cuisine; Pasta Design, homemade Italian food; Stuffed, grass-fed burgers and gourmet cheese; Point Loma Tea, international tea and accessories; and Local Greens, seasonal fare and local produce.
The goal of the new marketplace, announced more than a year ago, is to open with 34 vendors of local origin. Vendors are to include a butcher, fishmonger, baker, cheese specialist, juicer, tortilla maker and more. Two separate areas have also been reserved for wine and beer merchants.
Alongside the planned 30 purveyors, Liberty Public Market will also feature a shop called Liberty Public Market Pantry.
The Pantry will be an oversize space within the marketplace, operated by Blue Bridge Hospitality. It will showcase a variety of local products from many San Diego artisans, including local makers of jams, sauces, spices, oils and the like. Weekly demonstrations and classes will further activate the space, giving local merchants a chance to engage directly with the public and a chance for local marketgoers to meet the artisans behind these goods.
The venture was inspired by local restaurateur David Spatafore’s visits to Redding Terminal Market in Philadelphia and Granville Island Public Market in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Spatafore was impressed by the “rawness” of Building 1 at 2816 Historic Decatur Road, originally built as the Naval Training Center’s commissary in 1921. His vision for turning the vacant space into a public co-op of artisan food vendors won approval from the property’s management firm, Corky McMillin Cos.
Spatafore promises that Liberty Public Market will deliver something much different than a shopping mall. His partnership with McMillin is designed to bring about $3 million worth of infrastructure revisions to the space as well as an outdoor patio area, though implemented without using modern design elements that would alter the historic integrity of the structure.
The principles at Blue Bridge Hospitality have spent nearly $3 million into the mixed-use retail and commercial market — a public arena for locals and tourists alike to embrace the city’s finest handcrafted food and signature specialty items.
Earlier this summer, Blue Bridge presented the public market’s first 10 vendors. They include Venissimo Cheese; The WestBean Coffee Roasters; Fully Loaded Juice; MooTime Creamery, ‘a 50s-inspired ice cream parlor; Liberty Meat Shop; Mastiff Sausage Company; Pho Realz Southeast Asian food; Wicked Maine Lobster; Can Patch Pies and Cecilia’s Taqueria.