Sarasota grocer to open its 6th store

Detwiler’s Farm Market will open a new store in Bradenton later this year, its sixth in the Sarasota-Bradenton area.

The family-owned chain of grocery stores, best known for its local produce as well as its deli, bakery, seafood and meat departments, has signed a lease for 50,000 square feet at the Market Place West shopping center on 53rd Avenue West in the city. The Benderson Development-owned center is also being renamed Detwiler’s Marketplace.

The Manatee County store is expected to open in the fall.

This will be the chain’s first Bradenton store. It already has three in Sarasota and one each in Venice and Palmetto. Along with those locations, Detwiler’s has a distribution center and offices in Sarasota.

Detwiler’s, according to its website, traces its long history to Franconia, Pennsylvania. That’s where family patriarch Henry Detwiler, Sr. writes he and his brothers were taught “the trade of butchering and retailing at Franconia Meats.”

“Memories of cutting meat aside of my grandfather or helping him make scrapple (are) our some of my favorite. Or helping my dad make sausage or grind hamburger or make deliveries to Landis Supermarket, our cousins who owned a ‘big’ supermarket,” he writes on the website.

“As I got older the butcher shop and retailing became a big part of my life.”

The family went on to sell produce as well as Amish barns and outdoor furniture in the late 1990’s in Farmville, Virginia, a rural town about an hour outside of Richmond. Then, Detwiler writes, the family had a tent at Sutter Egg Farm in Sarasota before starting at the Fruitville Grove Market “where we learned so much about local Florida produce and our loyal Sarasota customer base was born.”

The family's first Detwiler’s Farm Market Store opened on Palmer Boulevard.

According to Benderson, which announced the news, the grocer’s move into Market Place West “signals the start of an exciting transformation of the roughly 95,000-square foot center.” Its roster of tenants already includes Dollar Tree, Petland, Fresca Pizza and Pasta and Mountain Comforts Coffee Café.