Fodor's Names The S&W Market in Top Ten Best New Food Halls

So proud to have been named one of Foor’s Top Ten Best New Food Halls in the US! We knew we were creating something really special, but to have this recognition is pretty exciting.

Read about all ten here. We can’t wait to visit all of these, in such fantastic cities as Nashville and Miami.

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Announcing the line-up at the S & W Market

Thrilled to announce the line-up at the S & W Market, Asheville’s first food hall brought to you by Ellington Realty Group.

Farm Dogs is a new concept from the owners of Farmburger and will offer grassfed sausages and hotdogs, and local pretzels – perfect pairing with Highland beer!

Peace Love Tacos is a new concept from Mountain Madre, offering a la carte fresh tacos and their famous La Casa margarita.

Bun Intended will bring their much loved Thai street food from their award-winning food truck to the S & W

Buxton Chicken Palace is a new concept from Meherwan Irani and Elliott Moss of Buxton Hall BBQ, focusing on their incredible fried chicken sandwich.

The Hop Ice Cream will be this beloved Asheville ice cream to downtown, with inventive, homemade flavors.

And of course, Highland Brewing Company is anchoring the space with two bars and returning downtown for their second taproom.

Circa 29 is our event space, with room for private events up to 150 people.

Opening May/June. Contact us for questions or more details.

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South Slope Coffee Giving Back

Some of our favorite clients are Luis Hellmund and Cristina Coll of South Slope Coffee. They are wonderful people, and are local roasters who take their craft very seriously and put out an incredibly delicious and responsibly sourced product. For the month of May, a portion of their proceeds from every 12 oz back of Luis Ordoñez coffee sold will go to support the Food Connection’s Disaster Relief Program.

To order a bag, click here.

To read more on WLOS, click here.

Thanks Luis and Cristi for all that you are doing for our community during this time!

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Mel Chin’s Wake – On View in the South Slope through September 7

Wake, Mel Chin’s giant animatronic sculpture, installed in New York City’s Times Square last summer, will be on view in Asheville from March 15 to September 7 at 44 Collier Avenue. Chin, a WNC based conceptual artist, was named a MacArthur Fellow in September 2019.

Ellington Realty Group is proud to be a sponsor of the event, and to have donated the site for the installation.

Wake was commissioned as part of Mel Chin: All Over the Place, a multi-site survey of his works from across many decades that took place in several New York City locations. A collaborative group, led by UNC Asheville’s Steam Studio and The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, formed to plan and raise funds for the sculpture to be seen locally.

Wake – 60 feet long, 34 feet wide and 24 feet high, conceived and designed by the artist – was engineered, sculpted and fabricated by an interdisciplinary team of UNC Asheville students, faculty, staff and community artists led by Chin. Wake is interactive and features decks and places to sit and contemplate.

Wake evokes the hull of a shipwreck crossed with the skeletal remains of a marine mammal. The structure is linked with a carved, 21-foot-tall animatronic sculpture, accurately derived from a figurehead of the opera star Jenny Lind that was once mounted on the 19th century clipper ship, USS Nightingale. Jenny Lind moves subtly as she breathes and scans the sky.

“She may be looking at what cannot be seen as she moves away from the wreckage of her past,” explained Chin. “It’s about relationships we have to history. It’s almost an obligation to understand our relationships with our environment now and an opportunity to project what things could be like far into the future if we’re not engaged.”


The artwork is not only a comment on climate change, it calls forth a history that includes ships, like the USS Nightingale and many other vessels, used to move tea, guns and slaves that augmented the nation’s burgeoning economy. “These expanding past economies serve as prologue and perhaps a warning to our current environmental dilemma,” said Chin.

“Wake is a powerful comment on how the tides of history have shaped many communities, including Asheville,” said Steph Dahl, who manages the City of Asheville’s Public Art Program.  “The piece asks us to acknowledge and discuss a long and complicated past, one that has left us operating in a sea of racial inequities and environmental crises.  Wake’s temporary presence in an empty lot where the history and future of the Southside and South Slope meet is part of its power, and its impermanent nature underscores some of the tough questions we need to address together. 

“Jenny Lind was the Beyoncé or Adele of her time,” said Chin. “She was brought by P.T. Barnum to tour America as the Swedish Nightingale. Barnum initiated American mass marketing and the world still lives in the real wake of this marketing enterprise. American commercialism provided profound advancement and wealth, but it came with real costs including colonialism, enslavement and rapid expansion. Jenny Lind, an abolitionist herself, had nothing to do with the USS Nightingale, but as its figurehead, she is an integral part.  You can’t escape the web you’re in whether you are in New York City or Western North Carolina.”

Since the late 90’s Chin has lived and worked in Egypt Township, outside of Burnsville in Yancey County, North Carolina. His work has been exhibited by major art centers nationally and globally. He is described in his MacArthur entry as “a category-defying artist whose practice calls attention to complex social and environmental issues. In an expansive body of work ranging from collages, sculptural objects, animated films and video games to large-scale, collaboratively produced public installations, Chin demonstrates a unique ability to engage people from diverse backgrounds and to utilize unexpected materials and places.”

Visitors can experience Wake daily from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. at 44 Collier Avenue. For more details about the piece and public programming, visit ashevillearts.com.

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Experiences are becoming essential for repeat customers

As written in a Forbes article published today, Seven Customer Experience Strategies To Make Multifamily Properties Profitable, “By adding experience design to the equation, brick-and-mortar retailers are creating customer interactions that will make lasting impressions, turn their shops into destinations and win repeat business.”

We see this happening here locally, as it’s not enough to offer a product, or even just food and beer anymore to get people to become repeat customers. And as published in the Asheville Citizen-Times today in Not just beer: Local breweries add trails, ax-throwing and other entertainment options, Highland Brewing, coming soon with a taproom in the S & W Market downtown, is also adding miles of trails on their east Asheville property. This will help give that experience that consumers are looking for, and keep them coming back for more. We see it as only a positive thing, helping to create fuller, lasting connections in communities and making commerce not just about the product, What experiences do you look for when visiting a store, a restaurant or a brewery? What do you want to see that Asheville doesn’t yet have?

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Asheville Named Yelp's Top Food Destination for 2020

Asheville is no strange to top ten lists, but this one is a biggie! We beat out Charleston, Portland and New Orleans among other great cities to be the top food destination. French Broad Chocolate Lounge, the incredibly delicious chocolate factory here, was named as the top place to eat when in the top food city.

As developers of the S & W Market, the new food hall and tap room scheduled to open in June, we are incredibly excited to be a part of this hyped-up foodie town. There is no slow-down in sight of the number of people who are drawn to this town, with food being one of the first reasons to visit.

For more, read:

https://www.citizen-times.com/story/entertainment/dining/2020/01/28/yelps-top-food-destination-and-asheville-food-fan-award-winners/4596954002/

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Ponce City Market a Literal and Visual Feast

Ellington Realty Group had the opportunity to visit Ponce City Market in Atlanta yesterday, and how glad we are that we did. This project, in a former old massive Sears & Roebuck building, is a treat to discover. The first floor houses an incredible food hall, with a mix of restaurants and styles. Of course we ate at Chai Pani Group’s Botiwalla which did not disappoint. The upper floors are retail, with a very thoughtful mix in place of tenants, and residences. This place has a great feel to it and is worth the trip.

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Preservation Society's Upcoming Gala

Ellington Realty Group is proud to be a sponsor of the Preservation Society’s upcoming Time Traveling Gala on September 29th. Buy tickets now to join us in visiting three historic homes by trolley. Always a fun event filled with great people and beautiful architecture.  For more information about the event, go to https://psabc.org/time-traveling-gala

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