St. Peters Grocery Store Offers Locally-Grown Organic Foods

With summer approaching, many St. Peters residents may be looking for a new place to grab fresh, locally-grown organic produce. Look no further than A&T Market.

This market offers patrons more than just produce, shoppers can find organic eggs by the dozen, organic meat and a variety of dry groceries. A&T also carries fresh fish, such as red snapper, grouper, swordfish and orange roughy.

Owner Steve Eversole grows the organic produce himself and the meat sold in his store comes from local cows, chickens and pigs raised on a farm in New Melle, MO. In addition to the fields he has located near Mid Mall Drive and Highway 94, Eversole also has a greenhouse where he grows organic produce during the cooler months.

Eversole plants a variety of fruits and vegetables, such as peppers, tomatoes, cabbage, carrots, potatoes, onions, broccoli, apples, strawberries, watermelon and cantaloupe.

“I will guarantee the melons are the sweetest in the state,” he said of the fruit.

Eversol’s background has well prepared him for his current business. The entrepreneur has worked as a cook at Tony’s Restaurant in St. Louis, as well as a driver for Pillsbury, and said it was when he was a driver that he made contacts in the produce-growing business. Eversole added that he started working for a grocery store when he was 16 and worked there until he was 23.

Growing produce is in his family,. His father supplied all the vegetables to the IGA food store in Harvester, which was the only grocery store in the area in 1950 when Eversole’s family came to the St. Charles County area. 

“My dad did that for 40 years, and I’ve picked up where my parents left off,” he said of his family’s history of growing produce.

Eversole said the family tradition continues, as his son Marshall helps him in the fields and growing produce. In fact, Eversole said he had families in mind when he started his organic garden.

“I thought about how my dad worked, and how he planted, he thought about his children and he didn’t put pesticides on food,” he said.

In addition to running his market and maintaining his growing fields, Eversole also helps others in the community.

Eversole said he owns 13 different buildings in St. Charles which he uses for a non-profit organization called Hope and Progress. The program aids in helping men get off of drugs and alchohol by giving them a place to stay while they’re in the program.  Eversole said he helps feed the men at the house as well as local food pantries with any surplus of his food and produce.

A&T Market is located off of Jungs Station Road at 3000 Imperial Drive.

Hours of operation are Tuesday through Friday 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Mondays. For more information, call 636-447-0901.