After months of renovations, the Ridge Market - a Findlay Market-style grocery selling fresh meats, produce and flowers that originally was to open in mid-June - will officially open this weekend.

        The finishing touches to the Pleasant Ridge location, including the security and phone systems, are not complete. The Findlay Market-style market's grand opening is at 8 a.m. Saturday.

        But if the market is finished earlier, the doors will open before the end of the week.

        “We'll definitely be open on Saturday,” said Doug Newberry, president of Improve Pleasant Ridge, a business development group. “But we're hoping everything will be up and running before then.”

        Readying the market ready has been a community effort. When the IGA grocery store, at 6142 Montgomery Road, closed last summer, neighborhood residents rallied together to make sure the site did not sit empty or attract undesirable businesses.

        The store had been a grocery for 60 years. While trying to preserve the building's charm - which dates back to about 1910 - local dollars funded skylights and other renovations to give the site a more open feel, Mr. Newberry said.

        “You wouldn't recognize it as the old IGA anymore,” he said. “We had hoped to get it done quicker, but the reality is that construction took longer than we expected.”

        Now, the 15,000-square-foot building will feature more than a dozen vendors who will be open six days a week, year round. Besides fresh meats and produce, it will sell beer, wine, cheeses and other products.

        The market still has some vendor spots open, which Mr. Newberry said he hopes to fill with kosher foods, pies and a butcher.

        “We're hoping it will bring more traffic to Pleasant Ridge,” Mr. Newberry said. “A lot of people are going to the strip malls and downtown Cincinnati. We're hoping it brings people back into the neighborhood.”

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