Gamble Creek Farm Market
Each year thousands flock to the three Chiles Hospitality restaurants—the Sandbar, Mar Vista, and Beach House—that anchor laid-back fine dining from Longboat Key to Anna Maria Island. They come not just for the Gulf views, but for unparalleled flavor and freshness on the plate sourced from Gamble Creek Farms. With the recent opening of the Gamble Creek Farm Market, foodies and locavores can bring that Gamble Creek goodness straight to their home kitchens.
A sustainability frontrunner (a way out frontrunner) in the restaurant business, Chiles Hospitality acquired 26 acres of Parrish farmland in 2013 to create true farm-to-fork menus. By 2017, the farm had become productive enough to support a wildly successful farm stand and went 100 percent organic in its fields the following season. Last year, Gamble Creek Farms announced the opening of a 600-square-foot indoor market, open to the public five days a week.
“Pretty much anything you find in our market are things you’re not going to find anywhere else,” says Jim Harwood, Gamble Creek Farms’ general manager. The market’s pièce de résistance, its organic produce cooler, will confirm that any day of the season. There you’re sure to find heaps of greens, the farm’s claim to fame: kale in vivid hues, tiny heads of Gem lettuce, succulent stir-friers, and buttery Bibb leaves that stay sweet and tender even in Florida heat.
“We don’t to grow the normal lettuces,” says Farm Manager Zack Rasmussen. “We want to do super-specialty varieties. In everything we do, we want to connect people with their food’s stories, to think, and to try new things.”
The market is attached to a full-service commissary kitchen, where organic fruits and vegetables become jewel-toned jars of pickles, preserves, ferments, and other exciting pantry staples. The Beach House’s renowned bakery keeps two cases loaded with fresh breads, pastries, pies, and cheesecakes, and the same premium seafood, poultry, beef, and pork products served at the restaurants stock the market’s meat counter. The market sources gourmet products from Florida growers and culinary artisans, such as Petrichor Mushrooms, Kahwa Coffee, and 15 Olives oils and vinegars, and rounds out its wellness offerings with a variety of CBD products.
In addition to adding more tropical tree fruits to the shelves (from the familiar mango, avocado, and key lime to palate-expanders such as kumquat and chocolate sapote), hemp is making a big buzz at Gamble Creek. The farm was recently approved to cultivate cannabis, and the farm managers can’t wait for customers to try hemp leaf as a salad blend additive.
As Administrative Farm Manager Natasha Ahuja points out, the Gamble Creek Farm Market’s beautiful abundance makes visible something vitally important going on beneath the surface there:
“We’re improving soil health immensely,” she says. “Soil health is a big problem, and I think a lot of people are starting to realize that. With a focus on soil biodiversity, we’ve brought in a lot of pollinators that we didn’t see before.”
“By not using pesticides and herbicides, we’re seeing more complex pollinators, more birds, more rabbits, more everything,” Rasmussen adds, “because you can just tell everything feels like it’s in a safer environment and able to function at its highest ability here.”
He continues, “We want to heal this farm, we want the land to be solid, and we want the environment around us to be safe and ecologically friendly. So, for us, soil health is the most important reason to be beyond organic. And then, of course, the health of local ecology goes with the health of our community consuming this product.”
