Marion Barry Avenue Market and Cafe started with a vision. Chris Bradshaw was looking across the street at a closed restaurant in 2012, when he thought: “That could be a grocery store one day.” He didn’t turn that restaurant into a grocery store, but the dream never left him.

Bradshaw is the founder and executive director of Dreaming Out Loud , a food justice nonprofit he began in 2008 to increase food equity east of the Anacostia River. The organization serves as a food access hub for local farmers, an incubator for food entrepreneurs, and a source of fresh and cooked food for the community through their farms and farmer’s markets.

On September 27, Dreaming Out Loud opened the Marion Barry Avenue Market and Cafe (1303 Marion Barry Ave., SE), a welcome addition to Ward 8, which, unti

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