Rooted Stories: Jon Henry General Store

Rooted Stories shares the people, places, and passions behind our regional food community. In this edition, Jon Henry discusses building relationships with farmers, artisans, and makers across Virginia while creating a destination that celebrates local food, craftsmanship, and community.

How do you build partnerships with local farms, artisans, and makers?

We work with over 200 different artisans, growers, and farmers from the Commonwealth. I don’t have a traditional spreadsheet but instead have folks last name in my phone saved as what they make. I try to always maintain a positive relationship with our vendors. We invite them to do pop ups and tastings for the store. We attend their kids graduations or birthday parties. I also attend worship services with many of our Old Order and Amish families who supply product. I feel like I get to really know many of business supporters over the years. It’s not just seeing them at the trade shows but also follow up engagement,. invitations, and communication. I also encourage resource sharing so if I see about a grant or such, to forward it onwards. I think it’s important to keep engaged.

What are some of your favorite products for summer?

That’s a hard question when you have 10k different sku on the shelves! I wear all our socks, of course daily! So there’s something unique, silly, or colorful on my feet. I’ve fallen in love with the Nightingale ice Cream Sandwich Bars! They’re made in Richmond and we’ve carried them since about their start. It’s just so delicious and refreshing on a summer day, especially their key lime! Otherwise my summer treat is an heirloom tomatoes, either Old German atop some Dukes Mayo (ONLY DUKES), atop some white bread. It’s just so refreshing to have a nice chilled slice of tomato on a hot summer day.

Is there a product people are surprised to find in your store?

I pay attention to food allergies and we’ve picked up quite a customer base interested in gluten free and grain free items. We’re following that lead into curating more Alpha Gal friendly products and see a real uptick on specialty meats like ostrich, camel, yak, and alligator. Besides those meats, folks are surprised in the Spring Season in the depth of our heirloom tomato plant collections; we carry that energy into the fall with an eclectic array of over 50 types of heirloom pumpkins.

What inspired you to become involved with Root to Table?

Since we opened in 2018, we’ve been invested in supporting local production be it artisan wears or food stuffs. I appreciate Root to Table for its holistic approach from working with institutions like schools, to restaurants, to home cooking. It’s important that the local gets embedded back into all those facets of life. Besides just our customer facing side, we also work with schools, nursing homes, restaurants, and food trucks to source local things for them. I think It’s important to embed local into each aspect of life and food system from our kitchen table, institution cafeterias, etc