New market Danby Food and Drink to open this spring

Across from Lane Automotive in Danby, among all of the old buildings that dot the landscape along Danby Road, stands a little building sporting a bright yellow coat of fresh paint.

“It’s the only building anywhere near there that’s freshly painted,” said Kartik Sribarra, Danby resident, the owner of Danby Food and Drink, located at 1849 Danby Rd. (Route 96B). The new business is slated to open in April or May.

Sribarra and property owner Olivia Vent envision a market where customers can sit down and enjoy a sandwich made with locally sourced ingredients, then take home grocery staples and a freshly baked loaf of bread.  

For Vent, who has invested just over $100,000 in the project, the market is the first step to developing more of the property.

“The market will be bookended by apartment units,” she said. “This is pretty much an experiment for Danby. It’s the first property that will include commercial and residential buildings.”

The small café/grocery store will have a space for a bar with beer and coffee service, café seating and a small indoor space for gatherings and live music. There will even be a corner with toys and activities to keep children busy while their parents shop.

“It will have a little bit of everything,” Sribarra said. “The goal is to give people a place to hang out and meet neighbors and grab a bite to eat, or grab a drink.”

Sribarra, who moved to Ithaca from Washington, D.C., with his wife and son about a decade ago, resided in Portland, Oregon with his wife for a time; they “fell in love with the idea of living in a place with a tight-knit community and access to great outdoors.” 

“So, once we decided we had to leave D.C., we were looking for communities with the same feel,” he explained. 

Sribarra said his plan for Danby Food and Drink was inspired by Brookton’s Market in Brooktondale as well as Main Street Market in Trumansburg, where he is currently employed.

“Both are kind of the same model,” he said. “In addition to prepared goods, we’ll have a small but comprehensive selection of groceries to meet most basic needs.”

“It’s literally the only location remotely conceivable for this project,” he said. “The property owner there long held a vision for this type of business, and she contacted me years ago, and she’s been wonderful.”

That property owner is Vent, who met Sribarra through then-Danby Town Planner David West.

“I was so impressed with [Sribarra’s] professional experience and personality, and our visions very much aligned,” Vent said. “After consulting with contractors and architects, it was decided that what had previously been the farm machine shop would be the most economical to renovate, and I would undertake the expense of bringing it up to commercial code so [Sribarra] could lease it for his business.” 

Vent describes 1849 Danby Rd. as “the very core of the historic hamlet.”

“It is one house away from the Federated Church and almost across from the town hall,” she said. “It consists of the remains of a Greek Revival-era farmstead, one of the first in Danby.”

Vent, a member of the Danby community for more than 30 years, grew up in Maryland but lived abroad as a child in Lebanon.

As an adult, she has resided in Germany, Rwanda, Colombia and Switzerland, in that order.

”This exposed me to the many different ways in which people create community, and how the built environment facilitates connecting people,” Vent said. She purchased the property in 2007, having lived in Danby since 1991, when she and her husband arrived in Ithaca and purchased the Hezikiah Clark house at 1874 Danby Rd., built in 1809.

“Living in that house was an amazing experience, and we immersed ourselves in Danby’s history,” Vent said.

From 1992 to 1994, Vent was director of Historic Ithaca, and after she returned from Switzerland in 1996 she served on the Danby Town Planning Board for over a decade.

“I became concerned about the deterioration of historic buildings along [Route] 96B that constitute what was the original hamlet of Danby,” she said. “In the 1960s urban renewal frenzy, 96B was extensively widened to accommodate more and faster traffic through the town, making it risky to cross from one side to another. All the old trees lining the road were removed.”

This started a long, slow decline in local businesses to the point that today Danby is “effectively a bedroom community to Ithaca,” Vent said. The town lost its elementary school, a hardware store/diner, gas station and grocery store.

“What remains is a car repair shop,” Vent said. “My goal in purchasing the adjacent properties at 1849 and 1839 Danby Rd. in 2007/2008 was at some time to restore to the town’s historic core a village center, with services and space for the community to gather.”

She hopes the opening of Danby Food and Drink will be an effective way to kick off those efforts. 

Sribarra said that he hopes people will visit the market after spending time at the park or walking the many nearby trails.

“Personally, I’d love to go for a hike and then stop in for a beer after,” he said.

“My goal is to create the kind of a space that folks think of when they don’t know what to do,” Vent said. “You know you’re going to see a friendly face and get something delicious to eat or drink.” 

Sribarra said he is looking forward to working closely with local growers and producers.

“I’m excited to serve as an incubator for new growers and folks that I learn about who are coming up and eager to vend their stuff,” Sribarra said. “One thing I really like about a small market like this is the ability to be really nimble. If a grower has four extra bushels of apples for us, I can tell them to bring them in — maybe make some sort of salad from them.”

Sribarra, who imagines he will spend much of his time in the market’s kitchen (at least at first), enjoys crafting simple recipes.

“I love making really good soups,” he said. “The key is a really rich, flavorful base. When the quality of the ingredients is good, the food doesn’t need much else sometimes.”