Local Food Chain Takes Root in Queens

Rows of plants grow in the confines of the rooftop

In neat rows of soil that dance around immovable objects, a ventilation duct here, a water tower there, Brooklyn Grange Farm, located on the roof of the building at 37-18 Northern Boulevard, gives birth to hearty greens and juicy tomatoes, among other vegetables, thanks to the owner and farmer Ben Flanner and a host of volunteers.

Flanner’s farm is a venture of love set out to prove that urban agriculture can be self-supporting. “It can be sustainable if we can generate enough revenue to pay for farmers and the cost of the business,” he said. “It is important to prove this could work.” Making his farm economically viable has a two-fold purpose: it keeps his business alive but it also proves to other potential farmers that urban agriculture is possible without losing money.

Flanner said his farm would need to sell everything they can grow during the season, which is no small feat, to cover costs for the entire year. With a small stockpile of savings, he said they would be able to cover the overhead costs during the winter months when the farm is not operational. “It’s sort of like stockpiling your vacation days,” he said. To meet this goal, they sell both to consumers and local businesses.

“Restaurants are strictly crucial to our survival,” Flanner said, sitting next to some spinach plants popping out of the moist dirt, carefully picking and eating one here, one there. Even though he said he would like to create his own market large enough to sell everything they grow, at this moment the sales from “one restaurant might be one-third of or equal to a whole day at the farmer’s market.”

Goods sold at a farm stand in the lobby of the farm's building

And while this support helps to make Flanner’s business viable, it also boosts the appeal of the restaurants as well.

M. Wells Diner is one such restaurant. The owners Hugue Dufour and Sarah Obraitis have purchased produce from Brooklyn Grange almost from the first time they opened their doors in July.

“First, they have incredible products,” Dufour said. “You really have a contact with the farmers.” The restaurant’s staff was eating an after-closing dinner around a wooden communal table as Obraitis displayed a farmer’s receipt, black ink scrawled on a small square of cardboard ripped from a box.

The connection of the farm and the diner is mutually agreeable. Flanner described the relationship as “super symbiotic” in that feedback and recommendations from one business to the other in both directions is a great way of spreading the word. “The restaurants send people to our greenmarket,” he said, “and customers can know where our food is served.”

During the peak of the season, M. Wells offered a simple salad of tomatoes and olive oil that borrowed the name of the produce’s birthplace. This back-and-forth recognition is an integral part of a support network that positively affects both businesses as well as the many others involved in this growing community web.

For example, one volunteer at the farm became a patron of the diner. “He was packing boxes for us and then came here to eat,” Obraitis said. In addition, on a small table near the entrance to the diner rests information pamphlets for many local organizations, including Flanner’s farm. “We have the flyers and, strangely, the day after they’re all gone,” Dufour said.

And M. Wells is but one of several restaurants city-wide that buy from Brooklyn Grange. Vesta, located at 21-02 30th Ave. in Astoria, not only buys their produce but also hosts a farm stand on Saturdays during the season, an arrangement that draws attention and customers to both the restaurant and the farm. Roberta’s at 261 Moore St. in Brooklyn also holds a farm stand on Sundays.

This network of community interconnection spreads even further. Dufour used the French word terriore to describe it. “It’s a bunch of people working together to create an entity,” he said. Essentially, it is a concept of gathering every resource possible, from product to personnel, from a specific location. “Most of our employees are from Queens,” Dufour said.

At M. Wells, at least half of the furniture came from Build It Green! NYC, a non-profit organization that salvages building materials to prevent them from ending up in landfills and offers them at low prices to businesses or provides them to arts organizations. “On the furniture, we save a lot,” Dufour said.

And up atop the building on Northern Boulevard, Brooklyn Grange sets aside space for use by the Western Queens Compost Initiative. One of the initiatives founders, Stephanos Koullias, explained his arrangement with Brooklyn Grange while dolling out shares to anticipatory holders in an upstate farm’s pork Community Supported Agriculture program, or CSA. Basically, in exchange for providing them with the space to compost the proper food waste, Brooklyn Grange gets to use the healthy, organic-material packed soil that is produced. And they get some produce as well.

Some of the composting material that is so important for nutrient-rich soil that produces healthy plants comes from local businesses as well, such as the used coffee grounds from a local café. “Our main concern is that the stuff that can be composted does get composted,” Koullias said. In addition to reducing the solid waste in the area, he said that the compost helps community gardens and other recipients of the soil thrive. And in return for their food waste recovery efforts, the volunteers at the Western Queens Compost Initiative sometimes get vouchers for items at local businesses. Flanner also provides Koullias with a place to keep his bees, though they are at this point strictly personal.

This network is a physical manifestation of Dufour’s terriore and is an increasingly growing trend in the American food scene. This model, however, appears to be a strong and reliable force in creating an environment in which small businesses, community-centered organizations, and local residents alike can prosper as well. It fosters an incredible sense of togetherness. “We get to know each other and trust each other,” Dufour said.