Civic Market – a restaurant, retail store, and beauty salon – has opened on the southwest corner of Washington and Chicago in downtown Chandler.
It shares a courtyard with craft beer bar QuartHaus next to the police station and courthouse on the east side of Arizona Avenue.
The 4,000-square-foot building includes a coffee and juice bar, a kitchen with a wood-fired pizza oven, a dining/work area, a private dining room, a small retail area, and four salon rooms.
There are roll-up garage doors on three sides, a walk-up window for the beverage bar (pictured below), another walk-up window for the pizza kitchen, and a patio that wraps around three sides of the building.
‘‘There’s a need for grab-and-go food in downtown Chandler,’’ says Lilly Walter, who opened Civic Market with her husband, Adam.
‘‘We were looking for space, and Peter and Sigrid (Sciacca, owners of QuartHaus) had plans for this building as coffee, salon, and pizza. It was very similar to the vision I had. He offered us the building and we took our combined concepts and ran with it.’’
For its soft opening this week, food offerings are limited to the grab-and-go cold case filled with a selection of sandwiches, salads, fruit, bottled sodas, and such.
Lilly Walter says the pizza oven will be up and running in two weeks, at which time a menu of four pizzas, four panini sandwiches, and four salads will start.
Civic Market shares a courtyard with picnic tables, a basketball court, and a lawn area for games with QuartHaus.
The walk-up pizza window (shown below) will allow customers from QuartHaus or in the courtyard to grab a pizza. Conversely, they’re also welcome to bring beers from QuartHaus to enjoy at the market.
Lilly Walter, who worked as a manager at now-defunct Pasta Pomodoro for five years, also is a hair stylist and has taken one of the four 100-square-foot salon spaces.
Others have been taken by a barber and a nail stylist. The fourth space is still available; Walter hopes to find a skin or massage therapist.
This week, Civic Market is open from 6 a.m.-4 p.m. Next week, it will extend its hours until 8 p.m. or so on weekdays and 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, depending on customer traffic.
