Business Cycle: Chef'Store opens in Roanoke

The owner, US Foods, stores meat, dairy products, and vegetables in the freezer. This is not a backroom inventory cooler, but an in-store cold room that accepts customers and their flatbed shopping carts. On opening day, the temperature in the meat and dairy room was about 35 degrees, but the temperature in the vegetable room was a few degrees warmer.

Shoppers can peer through large windows to examine inventory and certain expanded price tags before venturing into the cold. Officials working at the store said the company used to lend jackets to customers, but stopped doing so due to the pandemic.

It is the retail division of US Foods, an Illinois-based food distributor. You don't need to be a paid member to shop. The slogan is “Made for chefs, open to everyone.” Local residents were observing the public opening on October 27th.

“It's a good addition to Roanoke. I said to my husband, 'Roanoke likes to eat,'” said Cindy Patterson of Roanoke County.

“I could see people using this for group party dinners,” said Karen Cahoon of Newcastle, adding: “There was a case of burgers and hot dogs.”

Cahoon bought large quantities of vegetables for juicing, such as kale and carrots, by the pound. But she probably won't shop there regularly, she said.

Samantha Gillis of Roanoke expressed her joy at the store with a chunk of beef rib roast in her arms.

“They have a lot of things I wanted to get. They don't have a freezer big enough right now.”

She found the prices for vegetables to be low, the kitchen supplies section to be well-stocked, “everything from point A to point B,” and the frozen section to be great. “We have every vegetable you can think of.” [and] It’s a huge seafood section,” she said.

I contacted the company to confirm their commitment to sourcing locally sourced food and asked for examples. No response was received within the deadline before publication.