Ritchie Market set to transcend the ordinary

"Beers, bikes and brew."That's how Transcend Coffee owner Poul Mark describes the motivation behind the newRitchie Market south of Whyte Avenue.

Mark and building owner Greg Zeschuk are on the verge of opening the upscale commercial space at 96th Street and 76th Avenue in the Ritchieneighbourhood,after nearly three years of planning and preparation.

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"The whole point of this really was to bring back to the community things that had sort of dissipated," Mark said. "We wanted to bring the production of goods back into the neighbourhood."

Besides Transcend Coffee, the market includes Acme Meat Market moving from its old location across 76th Avenue and Creekside Cyclery, opening on Tuesday.

Parts ofZeschuk'sbrewery, Blind Enthusiasm, and accompanying restaurant/brew pub,Biera, are still under construction.The brewer-in-trainingand BioWarefounder has twobrewmastersand plans to concoct European-inspired stouts, lagers,saisonsand sour beers.

Zeschuk describes the Ritchie Market launch as something between a soft and a hard opening.

"It's sort of like a poorly-kept soft opening secret," he said. "We're really actively figuring it out as we go."

Transcend will be open on Tuesday but Mark is waiting for a key piece of equipment.

"The roaster is still somewhere between here and Montreal," he said in an interview on Edmonton AM.

The cycling store won't have rentals yet but when the market is fully open, Creekside Cyclery will rent mountain bikes, fat bikes and swan cycles for kids.

There's an education component to Ritchie Market. There are plans forafter-school care and to teach kids how to ride bikes.

The collaboration will include a space upstairs where Mark said the business owners plan to hold wine, coffee and beer tastings and do innovative things like teach people how to make butter and cut meat.

"It's going to be this place, this hub in the community that I think has been missing for such a long time because of the dispersal of retail to the suburbs."

Eighty parking spots at Ritchie Market will be reserved for bikes.