Good Market isn’t just once a week anymore. Besides Diyatha Uyana (Thursdays) and Racecourse (Saturdays), you can now get Good Market’s fresh, organic food straight from local vendors, on the Lakpahana premises (across from Racecourse).
Location & Ambience
Lakpahana’s huge sign board and wooden eaves are hard to miss from the main street, right opposite the Racecourse building. When you walk in through the big gates and turn to your left, you’ll see the Good Market shop. This space actually just used to be a storage space but it was transformed by Good Market to give off a cosier vibe than their regular temporary events. It’s a lot of clean white walls, wooden paneling and plenty of soothing green just around the shop. Along the side of the shop is a patio space with chairs and tables so it’s a bit like a cafe.
Inside are shelves of sealed food and fresh veggies and fruits, much of the stuff you get at the Thursday stalls at Diyatha Uyana. It’s not only a shop, so there’s organic, healthy food available off the counter at both ends of the shop – by Good Market, LifeFood and The Brown Bean Coffee.
The Stuff
You get a range of things here, and everything is roughly priced between Rs. 250 and Rs. 1000. The good thing about Good Market is that the stuff here goes through heavy screening to make sure they are completely organic (none of the typical chemicals you get in supermarket stocks), and that they make nice with the environment and produce some social benefit. The whole project is described as a ‘social enterprise’.
The fruits and veggies are brought in fresh every day and on the day we visited were from farms in Anuradhapura and Nuweraeliya. They were roughly for about Rs. 20-45 for 100g, which is more than at the supermarket, but if you are health conscious and prefer getting stuff directly from farmers (we were told Good Market charges a very low margin for village products), then this is one of the very few easily accessible places that do it.
This is a super place to stop at for organic but tasty jars of chutneys, mango curries and canned chillies, at about Rs. 300-500 a jar. Besides some names we’re used to seeing at Good Market like Hansa and Mama Aida, some of the other interesting things we spotted were ayurvedic lotion products (Rs. 300-1000), Greenfield Farm organic tea (Rs. 320), Dunhila bee honey (Rs. 700), mini ice cream jars by Carino (Rs. 300) and even gluten-free fudge brownies by Yumi (Rs. 625). The prices vary, so there’s stuff from 150 to 1500 bucks.
The Food
Even if you’re not planning on shopping for groceries, you can hang out here and have a tasty but healthy snack. From the Good Market cafe stall, there’s tofu, salads, gluten-free brownies, vegan cookies, jaggery cake, orange cake among a few other things, for Rs. 100-300. It might not sound appetizing in a list but that’s only because we’re constantly told that cholesterol-heavy things are the tastiest kind of food. We got two tomato and cheese quiches (Rs. 180) from here, they were packed with well steamed veggies and cheese and tasted fresh and pretty great.
At LifeFood at the other end, you get very tasty, thick fruity juices and smoothies for around Rs. 300. We got a fresh, cool Avacado smoothie that came in a glass jar. They also have some roti wraps, fruit salads and noodle dishes (Rs. 300-600). The Brown Bean Coffee has got a long list of coffees, milkshakes and mochas for about Rs. 250.
Conclusion
We’re definitely fans of the Good Market shop. It’s smaller and feels more private than their weekly markets, and if you’re someone who wants to stay in shape and eat healthy, you get a decent selection of tasty, organic food here, for good prices considering the standard. The paved floors and green outside also make it a pleasant place to chill out at on a cool day.
