By Benjamin R. Freed and Josh Novikoff

Until it closed in 2010, the Safeway supermarket at 2001 S Street NW was one of busy Dupont Circle’s rare quiet amenities. Sure, it was the “Secret Safeway,” but it wasn’t all that super.

“It looked very 70s,” says Danielle Vogel, who acquired the location two years ago and said Safeway left it stripped down with not even a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system to speak of. Vogel, 32, is the owner of the new Glen’s Garden Market, which opens Sunday with a neatly displayed selection of small-batch foods sourced from the District and surrounding states.

Unless the product was made in a state touching the Chesapeake Bay Watershed—that’s D.C., Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York—Vogel won’t sell it. The products are also all craft items, the kinds of brands found mostly at farms and farmers’ markets, but rarely on store shelves. Vogel, who used to work in environmental politics, says that many of her products might not have the U.S. Agriculture Department’s “Certified Organic” label, but it’s more important to her that they be locally sourced or manufactured.

“They may not source indigenously, as long as they’re creating indigenously,” she says. Obviously, this maxim applies to the coffee she stocks. Coffee beans don’t grow in the mid-Atlantic, but her preferred supplier, Shenandoah Joe, roasts its coffee by hand in Charlottesville, Va.

Vogel spent time working on Capitol Hill and the Justice Department, but opening a grocery store was probably inevitable for her. She’s a fourth-generation grocer, and a scion of two New York-area supermarket chains. Her mother’s family launched Pathmark. Her father, Glen, for whom the new store is named, was a co-founder of The Food Emporium. Although her family spun off the stores years ago, Vogel suggests getting into the business was unavoidable.

“It was a matter of genetic destiny,” she says.

Vogel also hired a chef, Sean Sullivan, to run the store’s butchery and prepared food selections. Sullivan, who has done time in the kitchens at Central Michel Richard, Vidalia, Matchbox, and The Hamilton, as well as the Jefferson and Gaylord National hotels. But in this new gig, Sullivan seems most eager to try out his dry ager, which he is using to create an array of cured meats that he says will turn out finished products faster than normal. Salami, says the Calabria-trained Sullivan, will be ready in 39 days, as opposed to the usual three months.

The prepared food, judging from the samples offered at a preview event, suggest Sullivan knows his way around a deli counter. Slices of roasted and poached turkey plated on thin crisps along with greens and a peppery relish are moist and piquant. Store-made short-rib hot dogs have that distinctive crunch.

Then there’s the bar. Vogel’s in-store café features seven draughts from local breweries, including Three Stars, Port City Brewing Company, and Devil’s Backbone (which was on tap during Thursday’s walkthrough), along with eight wines set up in a dispenser offering two-, four-, and six-ounce pours. True to her geographic ethos, most of the wines come from either Virginia or New York.

The prices are also on par with what one finds at farm stands, not other grocery stores. A half-gallon of milk, for instance, goes for $4.99, though its nearby origins in Chambersburg, Pa. is clearly marked. But Vogel is dealing with economies of scales. In the event she is selling an item one might find at Whole Foods Market—which she estimates applies to only 30 of her store’s offerings—she matches those prices.

But Glen’s Garden Market is clearly aimed at the environmentally sensitive, farmers’ market-visiting set. Vogel won’t even give customers plastic or paper bags, assuming that her clientele will bring their own, or buy one of hers. Part of the reason she’s jumping into the “implicit family business” is to advance her own environmental activism. She says her frustrations with the political impossibility of advancing climate legislation on Capitol Hill left her with the sense that any meaningful action is at least another generation away.

So instead, she’s going to sell groceries.

Glen’s Garden Market is located at 2001 S Street NW; open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.