Mary Kate and Jon Walker had an idea.
Dedicated farmers-market shoppers, they loved to make connections with local artisans and makers who were creating products in small batches from the freshest ingredients. They enjoyed meeting the farmers and finding the best local produce.
And they wondered: Why not make that farmers-market experience accessible to people every day?
The couple brought their idea to life as The Tides Seafood Market & Provisions, in what was once a post office, sitting on a corner of Main Street in quaint downtown Safety Harbor. Pass through the distinctive wooden doors under a copper awning, and you’re met with lots of familiar farmers-market friends. Over here is fresh bread from Gulf Coast Sourdough! There’s a freezer full of Churned Ice Cream! There’s fruit from Florida Fruit Cooperative, and produce from Life Farms!
It is wildly charming. Big bunches of sunflowers, display towers of local honey, colorful jars of St. Pete Ferments kimchi, and perfect heads of Brick Street Farms lettuce lure you from case to case and make up the “Provisions” side of The Tides Seafood Market & Provisions.
As for the seafood, Jon says they “try to stay as local as possible. The closer we can get it to where we are, the fresher it will be.” Spending 17 years in the seafood distribution industry gave Jon an intimate knowledge of the way things work in that business. It’s not easy for the local mom-and-pops to compete with big seafood companies from places like New York, who can send drivers and cash to the Gulf Coast and pay top dollar for whatever comes in on the boats.
Jon says he’s found success by partnering with a smaller seafood company in Tarpon Springs that can keep The Tides in stock. “They do sell to Miami and all over the country, but they also care about the mom-and-pops, the smaller operations, and that’s the reason we really lean on them,” Jon says. “He keeps us in domestic grouper year round—red grouper, black grouper, scamp grouper, gag grouper, and also red snapper. He has 10,000-plus stone crab traps, so he’s our single source for stone crabs… It’s just uber-fresh, uber-local, and that’s what we’re looking for.”
Of course, there is high demand for fish that can’t be caught locally—like salmon, cod, swordfish, and tuna. For those species, Jon says they go to great lengths to research the fishing practices of the suppliers to make sure that they are harvested in a way that is sustainable and environmentally healthy. They’ll also cherry-pick their products, making sure they find the best in each category.
“One company does mussels better, this guy may do tuna better,” Jon says, “so it’s a matter of knowing who does what great, and partnering with those people.”
Mary Kate calls it being “intentional”—knowing who the vendors are, and what they do best. She says they also put this thoughtfulness into their other meat products, such as their chicken and pork, which are raised in Dover by Olivor Heritage Farms. “The chicken is pasture raised—no soy, no GMOs, no nonsense,” Jon says. “It’s chicken and pork the way chicken and pork are supposed to be. It’s more expensive, but you taste the difference, you can smell the difference, you can feel the difference.”
And it just wouldn’t be a farmers-market experience without a bite to eat before heading home. The Market’s eatery serves up a full menu for lunch and dinner, including what Jon calls “the best grouper sandwich around, because we start with the best grouper!” The remoulade sauce on the grouper sandwich, along with the variety of po’ boy sandwiches, harken back to Jon’s days cooking in New Orleans restaurants. Other choices include seared scallops with creamed corn, salmon sofrito, or a Providence Cattle Co. burger. Or, just pick your favorite fish from the case, and send it back to the kitchen for a simple preparation.
“At its essence, we’ve tried to create that farmers-market feel all week,” Mary Kate says. “We want to get as close to the source as possible.”
The Tides Seafood Market & Provisions
305 Main St., Safety Harbor
727-699-8433
Thetidesmarket.com
