How One Entrepreneur Is Building A Heart For Her Community.

“I wanted to build a place for the community to come together.”

After only a year and a half since its doors first opened to the public, Miriam’s Grand View neighborhood market has become the epicenter of the community. A shelf stacked with board games next to the communal, open seating area next to a television, regular meetings held by neighborhood organizations, and an open mic scheduled every Wednesday, Mar Vista Market owner, Miriam, was very deliberate when developing the vision behind her business.

Miriam wanted to build a place where parents could bring their children and friends could get together to have a casual dinner and meet some of their fellow neighbors. A little dining area, a bit removed from the produce and packaged food shelves, only includes tables with six or more seats, to encourage patrons to share a table, and ultimately, engage in conversation. In the market’s early days, Miriam would distribute paper surveys to the people who walked through her doors, asking customers what items they would like the market to carry, and what menu items they would enjoy in the pre-prepared food section. She wanted to shape her market around the needs of the community, and offer a, “clean, friendly, and respectful environment…tailored to the neighborhood.”

At the time of the interview, it was a Tuesday at 7PM, typically one would think a late evening for families and young professionals who had either school or work the next day, but the electric atmosphere and bustling conversations made it feel otherwise — like a Friday night. A young couple had taken their newborn on a walk and stopped in for a quick bite, while a video editor sat in a corner with headphones over his ears and eyes fixed on his computer screen. A group of guys and gals in their mid-twenties were sharing stories from their weekend adventures and quenching their thirst with a beer. It was evident that everything Miriam had envisioned for her market to become, a heart for her neighborhood, had come to reality, but it wasn’t built overnight.

While most of Miriam’s friends are probably retired, she is running around the store, talking to customers, or working with her employees in the kitchen, cooking some of her delicious home-made recipes. The night of the interview, Miriam was working on the payroll, while at the same time, making sure her four employees were preparing the necessary food for the following day. The market is open seven days a week, and most days, you can find her working from morning, when the market opens, till after close, when she and her employees prep the store for the next day. Her twelve hour work days are long and bone-grinding, but she doesn’t mind at all. When I asked her why she had started such a labor intensive business at this point in her life, she said, “I could never retire, I think I’d die.” And as for working for someone else, Miriam stated she has never and doesn’t plan on it, “I like to be my own boss; set my own time.”

The more we spoke, the more impressive Miriam’s work ethic became. When she’s not working, she’s organizing a meeting for her book club, or volunteering for local organizations. Walking away from our conversation, it was very apparent her emphasis on dedicating her life to working relentlessly to achieve the visions and priorities she has set for herself, as well as her love for rebuilding the idea of community by creating a place the encourages human connection and congregation, is the passion and motivation that keeps her so alive.

As for Miriam’s future, and to the benefit of the Mar Vista community, one thing is for certain — “I [will] never stop.”

On behalf of the residents of Mar Vista, thank you, Miriam, because of people like you, our community is stronger.