Name of company: Green Spot

Year founded: 2008

# of stores: 1

Website: www.greenspotmarket.net

Green Spot prides itself on being an environmentally-friendly convenience store with natural foods and fuel, too. The goal is to “provide a convenience store for people who shop at Whole Foods,” said Adam Velte, store manager.

The Food Base

Green Spot, which is located in Dallas, started with an emphasis on food. The store stocks healthy, organic and natural food and beverages, along with a small section of personal care items. Its coffee and espresso is sourced from two Texas-based roasters, Noble Coyote Coffee Roasters and White Rock Coffee. All the food served in its café is preservative free, with the meats locally sourced and all natural and the sauces made fresh in-house. The store has more than 300 beverage selections, from fountain drinks made with real cane sugar to six taps of kombucha.

An extensive wine and beer collection varies by season, with several vegan and local wines and beers in the mix. “We sell more wine per square footage than many stores,” Velte said, giving credit to the excellent picks from their two wine vendors. A recent addition to the beverage selection is THC drinks through the store’s hemp license. “These have been selling like crazy,” he said.

Two frozen yogurt machines churn out six flavor options with one machine dedicated to vegan chocolate and vegan vanilla frozen yogurt. Snacks include baked goods and gluten-free products, while cleaning products are biodegradable and nontoxic.

In the beginning, the store partnered with a local catering company, Good to Go Taco, which leased the kitchen. “The tacos became super popular, and we would have a line out the door for breakfast and lunch,” Velte said. After the Food Network featured Good to Go Taco, the owners opened up their own restaurant, leaving the Green Spot kitchen space available.

Bright Ideas

Green Spot lives up to its name when it comes to its business practices. Most of its trash is recycled and all serveware is both eco-friendly and 100% decomposable. That philosophy extends into the kitchen, too. “Our kitchen scraps are composted while our fryer oil from the kitchen is converted to biodiesel,” said Adam Velte, manager of the Dallas store.

Green Spot also buys and sells as many products as possible packaged with 100% post-consumer recycled materials. “We also try to obtain products that use less packaging in general to reduce that type of waste,” he said.

The c-store then hired a chef and created a new menu featuring breakfast and lunch tacos, burgers, hand-cut fries, Mexican-style dishes and steak and eggs. “We make our salsa in-house too, and stay busy for breakfast and lunch,” Velte said.

“Overall, our entire food and beverage philosophy has been to offer products that have been minimally processed and are as natural as possible,” he said. “Some customers turn around and leave” after they realize the store doesn’t carry a favorite product, “but most have been willing to explore our shelves, and they usually find something interesting to munch on.”

Greening the Community

Naturally, Green Spot offers more options for fueling vehicles beyond pumps for regular unleaded gas and diesel. “We have two Blink charging stations, one of the first gas stations in our area to offer a place for electric vehicles to charge,” Velte said.

The store does little marketing and promotion, preferring to interact with customers in-store or online via social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram. “We’ve also had quite a few news stories about us, I think because we’re unique in what we’re trying to do,” he said.

Part of the appeal beyond the environmentally friendly atmosphere and business model is the employees. “We try to make our workers feel a sense of belonging to this community and validated for their dedication and service,” Velte said. “Most have been with us two years or longer, and our kitchen staff has clocked a dozen years with us now, because we’re a very accommodating employer.”

For Velte, the best part of working for Green Spot is the customers. “We have some of the best customers we could ask for, and we want them to feel good about supporting a local business as well as enjoy the product or services purchased,” he said. “In return, they help to spread the word about our store to their friends and family.”