Summertime Market: Local Food, Retro Chic

Andrew Milauckas, 24, is about to embark on the third season of his Summertime Market. Standing alongside the Blue Star Highway in Douglas, MI, the small, but full market converted from an old Standard Oil pumping station has a quaint, nostalgic feel, from its Rockwellian signage to its shady position in a cluster of trees.

Milauckas, a Douglas native, found his inspiration for Summertime Market by moving away. A graphic designer now employed at Square One by trade, Milauckas attended school at SCAD in Savannah, GA and took an internship in New York. It was during his time away from Michigan that he conceived the idea of a local market.

"I was really impressed by the availability of fresh local produce in a metropolitan area," he says. "We have all this great produce being grown around West Michigan, but we only have access to it at farmers' markets, certain days of the week, certain mornings. If you work, it's hard to take advantage of it."

The Summertime Market works to make fresh, locally sourced produce and foodstuffs readily available, mostly within a 30 mile radius of the store. Opening on May 27 this year, the market will be open from 9 a.m. - 7 p.m., 7 days a week. Its prime location between Saugatuck and Douglas means everyone has to drive past on their way to the beach. Milauckas remembered the building from his youth while in New York, discussing how the ideal produce market would have a gravel driveway, a door on a spring -- all those old-fashioned trappings.

When he came for the building, it had been converted into a Nextel retail outlet with vinyl siding and a drop ceiling. Milauckas rehabbed the building backwards, removing the modern additions and returning it to the building it had been.

Now stocked with honey, organic milk, cheeses, salsas, snacks, sodas, jams, bread, desserts, farm-fresh eggs, meat and farm-grown flowers and produce, the shop has become a popular destination. He cites Trillium Haven Farm as a supplier, and visible are containers of nearby Palazzolo's Gelato.

"We stock what's in season, whatever farmers have available," he says. "We get new stock in basically every day. We source from several different farms to keep a consistent stock of things."

While limited in some ways -- for instance, you can't get produce here that isn't in season -- the staff at Summertime Market is very knowledgeable, always able to help customers devise a menu using the foods available.  "I think a lot of people have really grown to appreciate (the seasonal produce) and that we can help them build a meal around what is in season," he says. "You have to improvise and figure out something else."

Apart from helping build fresh meals and bolstering the local economy, Summertime Market also connects to the community with charity. They are donating a ten-person, catered meal using all local, seasonal foods prepared by a local chef as an auction item at the Saugatuck Center for the Arts annual benefit on June 18
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Summertime Market also arranges a 60-person, farm-to-table dinner in Fennville at Quiet Creek Farm, featuring cocktails and hors d'œuvres in a meadow, followed by a dinner where guests sit at two long benches inside a barn. The dinner fosters conversations and new acquaintances, as well as a nod to the local harvest. This event occurs the weekend before Labor Day, and also benefits the Saugatuck Center for the Arts.

"I really appreciate this area," Milauckas says of his home. "People always ask me why I like it here. I think it's the people. There are just some really incredible people here -- either locals or with second homes here -- that's just such an amazing, unique mix."


J. Bennett Rylah is the Managing Editor of Rapid Growth Media.

Photographs by Brian Kelly - All Rights Reserved