A 24,350-square-foot building on Wilson Pike Circle in Brentwood that spent more than 30 years as anything but a grocery store is finally getting back to its roots. Nashville Farmers' Storehouse has signed a lease to move into the former Huff's Food Town space, bringing local and organic products and produce back to the site for the first time since the market closed in 1993.
The deal, announced July 30, was brokered by commercial real estate firm NAI Nashville Stanton Group on behalf of property owner Mike Huff. According to WTVF NewsChannel 5, Huff said the property is part of his family and that he wanted to keep it rather than sell, despite receiving multiple offers to sell over the years, which he turned down.
A Family Legacy on Wilson Pike Circle
The Huff family's connection to the site runs deep. The family originally purchased the Food Town business across the street back in 1949, then built the freestanding structure at 144 Wilson Pike Circle in 1983, according to the Williamson Source, operating it as a landmark grocery known for custom meats and natural foods until it closed in 1993. Mike Huff's father, Glenn Huff, convinced him to leave his banking career to help build the business, and Mike Huff has described his father as an inspiration to him and to people throughout Brentwood, per NewsChannel 5. Mike Huff spent 17 years building the grocery store into a community pillar before it shut down.
The building itself still carries traces of that era. It retains wall-size photos from the family business along with the original wood trim and pink poles, physical reminders of the Huff family's decades-long presence on the property. Between the 1993 closing and this year's lease, the building was occupied by non-grocery retail tenants including Brentwood Interiors and Stitchers Garden, per the Williamson Source's reporting, rather than sitting vacant during the more than 30 years it spent closed as a grocery.
Why the Storehouse Struck a Chord
Mike Huff has said the new tenant struck a chord with him, and Nashville Farmers' Storehouse general manager Cristina Roman told NewsChannel 5 that the history of the location is part of what attracted the co-op to Brentwood in the first place. Roman said the Storehouse aims to provide nourishing and helpful food to the community it serves.
The co-op's flagship operation sits at 971 Smithville Highway in Sparta, Tennessee, where it functions as an agrarian cooperative market, organic flour mill, and bakery, according to footage shared by XPLR NASH. The Brentwood location will mark the organization's second brick-and-mortar footprint. Per the co-op's own published terms, Farmers' Storehouse operates an agrarian cooperative of more than 100 organic farmers and pays them up to 75% of retail sale prices, or two to three times what traditional crop elevators offer.
More Than a Grocery Store
NAI Nashville Stanton Group's announcement outlined plans for the Brentwood store to go well beyond typical grocery retail. The layout is set to include an in-house flour mill, an artisan bakery, a pizzeria, a tea and coffee bar, and a live performance stage for local musicians. The co-op's website notes it mills more than 35 different varieties of raw and specialty organic grains in-house across its facilities, giving a sense of the scale behind the planned Brentwood mill.
The co-op also stands apart on the payment front. As part of its focus on alternative agricultural economics, Farmers' Storehouse accepts Goldback physical gold currency and silver coins alongside standard cash, checks, and debit and credit cards at its locations.
The Deal Team and What's Next
Mike Huff was represented in lease negotiations by NAI Nashville Stanton Group CEO Devin McClendon, CCIM, along with commercial brokers Brandon Hoop and Ben Claybaker, according to the Williamson Source. Nashville Farmers' Storehouse is hiring new employees ahead of the opening, though the co-op has not set a target opening date as build-out gets underway.
The project lands amid a broader wave of commercial dining growth in Brentwood's booming plaza scene this year, with new suburban locations planned for Big Bad Breakfast, Edley's Bar-B-Que, and The Brass Tap. For Mike Huff, though, the return of groceries to Wilson Pike Circle is less about the broader market and more about honoring what his father built there decades ago.
