Business Profile: Cortlandt Farm Market
Photo credit: Neal Rentz
It has been an institution in Cortlandt for four decades and it is still going strong.
Cortlandt Farm Market continues to offer fresh vegetables and flowers it grows, fruit from local farms and a variety of other seasonal items.
The market has been owned and operated since the beginning by Dominick and Theresa DiNardo and their family. The couple lives in town near their business. Theresa DiNardo spoke about her establishment last week.
Her husband came to the United States as a 17-year-old with a family background in farming as a youth growing up in Italy, DiNardo said. Her husband’s father, Iolundo, was instrumental to starting the family business in Cortlandt 40 years ago, she said. “We opened it with other family members,” she noted. The couple has been married for 42 years.
The market is open April through December, seven days a week. What is sold at Cortlandt Farm Market varies throughout the year, she said.
“Every season has its own specialties,” she said. The market is closed in the winter, but that does not mean the couple is not working, DiNardo said. Her husband grows flowers prior to the start of each new season in April in the property’s greenhouse. Products geared toward Easter are a feature of the opening weeks of each new season, she said. Gardening supplies are a staple of the store.
A main focus of the market in the summer is local produce, DiNardo said. Most of the vegetables sold over the summer are grown, including eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes, on the farm located at the market property. Corn and fruit, such as plums, berries, watermelons and nectarines are purchased for the market from upstate farms. “We don’t do any fruit,” she said.
Apples grown in local farms are prominent during the fall, DiNardo said.
One of DiNardo’s tasks is to make fresh cider donuts in the store. “It’s a good fit,” she said, noting she has prepared donuts for five years.
Aside from produce, a wide variety of other items are sold at the market, including infused cooking oils and vinegars, dried fruits and nuts. Customers can purchase refillable oil and vinegar bottles that can be refilled at the store, DiNardo said.
What is one of the keys to the success of the market, which competes against supermarkets and other stores, over the decades? “I think it’s the quality,” DiNardo said.
DiNardo said she works every day at the market. “It’s a life,” she said.
Cortlandt Farm Market is located at2267 Crompond Rd. (Route 202). For more information call 914-739-0686.
