Joy Harlor opened the first all-local, year-round produce stand at the West Side Market in July to provide an alternative to arcade vendors who sell mostly non-local produce.

“We started tossing the idea around because it’s so frustrating to go to the market and have the repetitious experience of every [produce] stand being like the last one,” says Harlor, who also owns Le Petit Triangle at the corner of Fulton and Bridge Avenue. “Yeah, you can go there and get cheap produce – but it’s basically grocery store produce with the exception of The Basketeria and a few other local stands.”

Harlor, who sources many of the ingredients used in her restaurant from local farmers, took an entrepreneurial leap and implemented an idea that’s been discussed for years.

“There’s an abundance of local food sources and farmers markets, but we thought it would be great to have local produce at the market, which is a big deal in Cleveland.”

The stand, which is called Rooted in Cleveland, sells local produce from the Ohio City Farm, including fruits and veggies grown by Refugee Response and Cleveland Crops. Other produce sources include Maggie’s Farm in Stockyards and City Fresh in Oberlin.

So far, the business is just covering its costs, says Harlor, in part because customers aren’t necessarily accustomed to paying higher prices for local produce at the market.

“At the market, you have people who come in and want a flat of strawberries for five dollars,” she says, but sustainably-grown produce is more expensive. “It’s a different mentality. We have to tell people, ‘Sorry, our melons are three dollars, not two dollars.’”

Yet Harlor says that the stand is catching on with customers and starting to develop a regular following. She will evaluate in December whether to stay open all winter or simply to close the stand in the first quarter of 2014 and reopen in the spring.

“The idea was that the hoop houses will still be growing produce, but the question then is, how much can we get in January and February? And will our customers be buying?”

Harlor hopes the growing market for sustainably-grown food in Cleveland will attract more local vendors to the West Side Market. “I think it can definitely work,” she says.