Everybody's Market

Steinke made a move of breathtaking political dexterity.

by Bruce Schimmel

Paul Steinke is general manager of the Reading Terminal Market, and he's blessed with advice from everyone. Lots of it.

"We live in a fishbowl," says Steinke, who favors blue blazers. To channel the avalanche, at the front door he had put a suggestion box. But the box remained almost empty.

"People still continued to stop me, to tell me what they liked and didn't." People didn't need a suggestion box, having already claimed the right to buttonhole the 6-foot-5 Steinke.

The market is a microcosm of Philly. TV's Dr. Phil recently shot scenes here, as did the Travel Channel. Novelist W.E.B. Griffin features RTM in The Traffickers, writing, "If there's any place in Philly that better exemplifies its motto of the City of Brotherly Love than this market, I just don't know what it could be." This passage admittedly does end with a murder on the market floor. But, as Steinke says, "Hey, you take the bad with the good."

Owned by a state-chartered authority and managed by a nonprofit, the market sees more than 100,000 shoppers weekly. As the site of their first dates and the foundation of their feasts, many feel they've got a stake in the old place. A stake, if you will, they'd drive through Steinke's heart, should he upset their particular applecart.

But after seeing what Steinke hath wrought, I've come to respect his vision. Charged with protecting the market's historic nature, Steinke has locked out fast-food and corporate eateries, favoring instead local farmers and real food artisans.

Still, it's been a rough ride for Steinke. Last year, he beat back an insurrection of merchants spurred on by cheesesteak impresario Rick Olivieri.

It was a pissing match that Steinke couldn't afford to lose. Managing RTM's 80-odd (some very odd) merchants is worse than herding cats, who had hissed at a 2007 policy demanding they report their gross income. It was an incursion that many, including me, found too much in the style of a corporate mall.

Steinke had hoped to give Olivieri's primo location to Tony Luke. When Luke demurred, Steinke made a move of breathtaking political dexterity that silenced the howls of crunchy foodistas.

Ultimately, urban markets must reconnect cities with family farmers. So instead of seeking yet another sandwich shop, Steinke recently relocated the Fair Food Farmstand, from a puny place in the back, to Olivieri's former location up front.

Steinke's decision is already paying dividends for the farm stand. General manager Seth Kalkstein says they've increased revenue by some 40 percent within its first month. Featuring sustainably grown produce and humanely raised meats that are reasonably priced — it is all that a great farm stand should be.

Steinke is proud of this shift. "Whole Foods caters primarily to the wealthy, as corner stores in North Philly serve their market. But the Reading Terminal Market serves everyone." Nearly half of its shoppers, he says, are middle income, making between $40,000 and $100,000. Yet according to the USDA, he says, the RTM has the No. 1 redemption rate in the state for food stamps.

It's a diversity you can see in the faces of its shoppers every day, in a market that belongs to us all.

(bruce@schimmel.com)