He lives two blocks away with wife Lynn and son Dylan. Such proximity helps. He understands the neighborhood and what it wants. It also helps to have a health club with 11,000 members across the street. A team of four Trotter alumni plus 24 new hires launched the shop, but it took a contractor, architect, several consultants and work crews plus a couple of weeks of double time to transform the nondescript space into a high-tech production kitchen with spacious retail store by December.
Trotter scoffs at the notion of a gour-met food shop.
Instead, he insists, it is an urban marketplace, where people shop several times a week. I thought of what I would want in a neighborhood carryout shop and designed it that way. Prices are competitive with upscale food shops and specialty markets, says Trotter. The store's sense of spaciousness and light is by design, according to David Offenburg, the Chicago-based architect. Converting the space was not Herculean, but did require increasing the electrical power and adding plumbing.