{"id":22024,"date":"2025-05-31T21:56:04","date_gmt":"2025-05-31T21:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-food-market-celebrates-29-years-in-business\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:10:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:10:23","slug":"dolores-food-market-celebrates-29-years-in-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-food-market-celebrates-29-years-in-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores Food Market celebrates 29 years in business"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sarah
Sarah Vass, Linnea Peterson, and Noah Frasier pose outside the Dolores Food Market. (Matthew Tangeman\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

On April 11, 1996, the Dolores Food Market first came into Linnea Peterson\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n

She was working in Durango at the time, and her then-husband, Taz, was studying at Fort Lewis College.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaz said if we\u2019re to provide for a family, we need to own our own business and the market was for sale,\u201d Peterson said. \u201cI figured, why not.\u201d<\/p>\n

So they bought it.<\/p>\n

It was off Central Avenue then, set back from the highway and thus \u201cinvisible.\u201d It was \u201cconventional,\u201d too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were Looky Lous, peering in the window,\u201d she laughed. \u201cThe younger crowd, our age at the time, was asking for things. Natural, organic stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been evolving ever since,\u201d she said, explaining how they have a natural foods supplier in addition to the more \u201cconventional\u201d one.<\/p>\n

Community members requesting products still greatly influences what the Food Market supplies to this day \u2013 \u201cif we can get it, we will,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, it\u2019s \u201cnot a business of profit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s maybe a 1% net profit,\u201d said Peterson with a laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s a great business to raise a family, and we were able to do that. We raised our girls here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Peterson remembered the wood floors in the first store on Central, and how they\u2019d sweep it every night and sprinkle sawdust on them.<\/p>\n

She said her sister-in-law at the time made her daughter Sarah a padded suit so she could crawl around on the floor comfortably and stay clean. It was a onesie that covered everything but her head.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember the dust smell in the old store,\u201d said Sarah Vass, the market\u2019s manager now. \u201cA lot of my memories are here, though, like running around the store and getting in trouble for running around the store.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Linnea
Linnea Peterson stocks the deli fridge. (Matthew Tangeman\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Dolores Food Market moved to its more visible location on the highway in 1999.<\/p>\n

There, they hosted the town\u2019s first farmers market before it moved to Flander\u2019s Park.<\/p>\n

Six to eight vendors would back their trucks up to the overhang and sell their products. At day\u2019s end, Taz would usually go out and buy what they didn\u2019t sell, said Peterson.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still buy produce from local farmers,\u201d she said. Eggs and meats, too.<\/p>\n

On Oct. 1, 2019, Peterson took over the store on her own. A few years later, Vass moved back from Portland where she had lived for five years, and has been the store manager since.<\/p>\n

In Oregon, Vass worked at the popular Zupan\u2019s Markets, where she learned \u201ca newer way of cooking, gourmet ways of chefing it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Local
Local veggies and produce in the Dolores Food Market's produce cooler. (Matthew Tangeman\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Her husband, Noah Frasier, who\u2019s the meat manager at the Dolores Food Market, said he \u201clearned more about butchering, sausage, seafood\u201d at Zupan\u2019s, and trends like \u201chow people shop.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we really learned that here,\u201d he said, as far as shopping trends go. \u201cOur customers tell us what to carry. They really make the store run.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur customers love local food, organic food, local eggs,\u201d Vass added. \u201cIt\u2019s so important to buy local, and they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing able to be here comes back to the customer base,\u201d she added. \u201cWe know people\u2019s names and say hi when they come in. It\u2019s really a cool experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sarah
Sarah Vass helping a customer at the Dolores Food Market. (Matthew Tangeman\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Fraisier underscored how \u201cour customers bring the community in here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe community of the store comes from the community bringing it into the store,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And the community will come in, hang out and visit with one another \u2013 \u201cThey\u2019re not in any rush,\u201d said Peterson.<\/p>\n

For those who have heard about the market from outside the community, it\u2019s become something of a destination.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf people are remotely in this area, they\u2019ll come out of their way to come here,\u201d said Vass.<\/p>\n

Plus, they\u2019ve shipped fruit pies \u2013 which Peterson pointed out is made fresh, with no canned filling \u2013 to California, Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur pies go out into the world,\u201d said Vass.<\/p>\n

Fraisier added that someone once bought five pizzas before a flight home to Texas and flew with them as their carry-on.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur customer base is incredible, and so is our team,\u201d said Vass.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s 23 or 24 on staff, some full-time, some part-time, said Peterson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud of the success, the customers, the team, the community. We wouldn\u2019t be here without them,\u201d said Peterson. \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of businesses that have moved in and out of this place, but we\u2019ve been here 29 years now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we turn 30 next year,\u201d said Vass. \u201cWe\u2019ll throw an anniversary party, we\u2019re already planning now.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething summery, with a big tent,\u201d said Frasier.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just proud of it all,\u201d Peterson said. \u201cHopefully there will be a lot more years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
The Dolores Food Market turned 29 years old this April, 2025. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

year, it\u2019ll have a 30th anniversary party <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[44,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22024"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77550,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22024\/revisions\/77550"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22024"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}