Salty Market Farmstand - A Neighborhood's Happy Place
It’s the ideal neighborhood spot – a market with the freshest local produce, organic and gourmet groceries, fine cheeses and meats, and a well-curated international wine collection. Then there’s a deli serving delicious, creative breakfast and lunch items; delectable baked goods; restaurant-quality prepared foods; great coffee; indoor and outdoor seating; and a warm, friendly staff.
“Salty Market is a gem,” says Liam Luttrell Rowland, of the North Truro business he acquired in 2022 and has been gradually making his own since opening that spring. “I want to give ode to what’s already here. Salty Market Farmstand is just pushing it one step forward.” He added the word farmstand to the business’ name to reflect the focus on local produce.
A chef who grew up spending summers in Wellfleet, where his mother still lives, Rowland was close to buying East End Market in Provincetown earlier in 2022, but the deal fell through when his investor disappeared. “I think everything happens for a reason,” he says. His friend Adrian Cyr, chef-owner of the beloved Truro restaurant Adrian’s, which closed in 2012, told him he thought the owners of Salty Market might consider selling and asked if he wanted to talk to them. “The idea of having a market and a food operation has been my concept,” Rowland explains. “I wanted to prepare the food that I’m selling and have it be as local as possible.”
“Ellery [Althaus] and Claire [Adams] have been the most amazing, supportive couple,” he continues, referring to Salty Market’s previous owners. They had purchased the old Dutra’s Market in North Truro in 2014, months before they were married, and transformed it into a local fixture with groceries, a deli, and international wine and beer. In 2018, they started making bagels, which became very popular very quickly. In May 2022 Althaus and Adams turned Salty over to Rowland and opened Bagel Hound on Route 6 in Wellfleet; their bagels are still available at Salty.
“In my mind [Salty] is a lot less like a store and more like a food service operation,” says Rowland, who has worked at Terra Luna and Blackfish in Truro and Spindler’s in Provincetown. “I feel like post-Covid, this is the future of food – to be more casual, to be more ingredient-oriented and to have it be easier to get beautiful ingredients to customers. I used to deliver local products to chefs when I was young,” he continues. “That’s always been my focus.” In 2019, when he was still at Spindler’s, Rowland was one of five prominent New England chefs selected to be part of the Ocean Spray Cranberry Chef Collective – all chosen for their passion for using local ingredients and farm-to-table practices.
Rowland, who attended college in North Carolina, lived in Asheville with his wife from 2009 to 2017, where he worked with James Beard nominee Katie Button and Elliott Moss. They returned to the Cape, with their then-one-year-old daughter, when he was offered the position of executive chef at Spindler’s. “I was glad to be off-Cape, but glad to be back,” he says. “There’s something about Cape Cod you can’t get away from if you really love it. I felt like it was calling us back.”
When Spindler’s closed, at the beginning of the pandemic, Rowland created a farmstand at his home in Wellfleet, where he had a large garden, and also ran a supper club for a friend in Provincetown, “to support us emotionally as much as anything,” he says. “It’s really hard when you’re a chef and you feel like you’re heading down one path, then all of a sudden, you’re like, ‘wow, there’s nothing left of this industry.’ Luckily a lot of that comes back, and maybe it comes back healthier. I feel like I’m at a better place with my food. I’m happy I’m in a more casual service.”
In his first summer at Salty, Rowland says his primary focus was getting the market open and running, which happened pretty seamlessly from a customer perspective. One of his early moves was to relocate much of the alcohol from one side of the store to the other, emptying what had been a beer case and filling it with produce and “a lot of organic and wholesome grocery items.” The market sells as much local food and produce as they can get, including kale and flowers from Down Home Farm, mushrooms from Cape Coastal Products, greens from Dave’s Greens in Truro, certified organic fruits and vegetables from Cape Cod Organic Farm in Barnstable, and eggs from Wellfleet Chick Koop. “It’s one of the joys of having a business. It’s a representation of your life and who you are,” Rowland explains. “I’m very grateful for the farmers who have made me a chef. These are people who have known me since I was young. They’ve been providing me this gorgeous food for my whole life. It’s almost surreal.”
Rebecca Gonzales is a legacy employee, having worked at Salty since Althaus and Adams opened the renovated store. A native of Kingston, Jamaica, she began coming to work on the Cape seasonally in 2003 and has been a full-time resident since 2014. To Gonzales, the constant availability of local food in season is the biggest change under the new owner. Salty Market Farmstand “is like a farmers’ market here,” she says. “But farmers’ market is only on certain days. In the summer you can always come in here and you’ll get that community feel. It gives you that welcome feel. The farmers bring their wares in. We have freshly cut flowers. We have fruits and vegetables in season. And eggs!” she exclaims, almost as an afterthought. “Farmers come here with eggs and you can see it’s right from the chicken.”
Rowland has also been expanding a garden behind the market, growing vegetables and herbs both to sell and for use in the kitchen. In the market’s first season he grew herbs. Gonzales recounts instances of running outside to cut bunches of scallions, basil or other necessary ingredients for customers when there were none left in the case. In addition to the herbs – with an emphasis on basil, mints, parsley and cilantro – this season Rowland is growing tomatoes, peas, beans, cucumbers and squashes in the small terraced plot as well as some large metal pots.
The Salty proprietor notes that when he worked for others in the kitchen, he had to drive himself. “When you’re an owner, you have to be a provider. I don’t get in the way. I pick people who want to contribute something to the future of Salty Market.” Most of the staff is a couple of decades older than 40-year-old Rowland, and all have many years of experience in hospitality. “I want this to be a place where they can enjoy themselves, express themselves,” he says.
For the most part, Rowland plans the menu at the deli and does a lot of the cooking with his kitchen team. But, notes cook Aldo Labartino, “Liam has a very open mind,” and lets them try new things when inspiration strikes. Labartino is from Northern Italy and his kitchen colleague, Leslie Williams, is Jamaican. Many of their native dishes – like Aldo’s lasagna, spaghetti and meatballs, and lemon ricotta cookies and Leslie’s brown stew chicken, curry goat and escovitch fish with local mackerel – have made their way onto Salty’s menu, if not at the deli than in the prepared grab-and-go case or bakery counter.
Labartino learned to cook from his mother, who grew up in Puglia. He has been working on the Cape for 18 years, initially traveling back and forth to Italy. When he first arrived he did every job he could find, including cleaning hotel rooms. But he soon found his way into restaurant kitchens, starting as a dishwasher. Working at Far Land Provisions in Provincetown, he discovered that he liked to bake. He first came to Salty in 2015 and worked for its previous owners for a couple of months but had to return to Italy because his mother was ill. Now he handles all of the market’s baking, from morning pastries to cookies and bars to his favorite, focaccia, which he makes almost daily. “Sometimes I get confused between ounces and grams,” he says, laughing, “I try to do [my best] and they come out ok. Liam is happy and I am happy too.”
With a year of operation under his belt, Rowland is now able to spend more time realizing his vision of Salty as a place for people to congregate. Inside, he has extended the wood countertop surrounding the register in the center of the shop to accommodate seating. A friend covered some old wooden stools with fabric from vintage French linen bags. They are now more comfortable and tuck neatly under the counter. There is also a long wooden church pew, with a cozy cushion, opposite the counter. Outside, he expanded seating on the small patio next to the market. Large barrel planters brimming with flowers, and beautiful driftwood posts created by artisan Nate McKean of Provincetown, make the area very inviting.
Rowland’s plan is that in the future, especially in the off-season, customers will have even more reason to stick around. He recently received a year-round liquor license and has applied for a pour license, which will allow people to enjoy a glass of wine on-site with nibbles the kitchen prepares. He is not trying to create another restaurant, he says, but “a way for people to enjoy the food in different formats – to-go, on premise, a quick coffee with a friend.”
Scott Mayger, a self-described “wine dude” who lives in North Truro, helps curate the market’s wine collection and began holding tastings with Rowland in September 2022. The two met the previous winter when the chef held cooking classes at Truro Public Library. During his 35-year career in New York, Mayger worked in restaurant management before becoming a sommelier in 1996. He helped open WD-50 as beverage director with James Beard Award winner Wylie Dufresne. Mayger and his wife Beth, also a wine professional, used to travel to her family’s North Truro home every year. When the pandemic hit, the house had been sitting vacant. The couple decided to leave Manhattan and moved to Truro permanently in November 2021. Mayger and Rowland resumed wine tastings in early May and plan to hold them every other Friday.
Running Salty gives Rowland more time to spend with his daughter, who will enter second grade in the fall. “I can go see the sunset or go to the beach,” he says. “That’s really important to me. I like the community aspect of the store. I want it to be a destination.”
“It’s a nice environment,” adds Gonzales. “People are happy. They love our music. We’re a happy store.”
Andrea Pyenson has been a food writer and editor for more than 20 years, contributing to publications including The Boston Globe, Edible Boston, The Washington Post and Fine Cooking. She was co-author of three cookbooks with chef Andy Husbands and his barbecue teammate, Chris Hart, and helped edit The Boston Globe’s New England Seafood Cookbook. Andrea has been a judge with The Readable Feast New England culinary book festival, now in its eighth year, since its founding. She divides her time between Truro and Newton.
Salty Market Farmstand
2 Highland Road, North Truro
508-487-0711
thesaltymarket.com
