For decades, Sharpsburg residents who wanted fresh groceries had to travel two miles just to find them. The small borough along the Allegheny River, tucked between O'Hara and Aspinwall, had no neighborhood market of its own — no produce aisle, no deli counter, no place to pick up dinner on the way home. That changed this spring when Harvest on Main Community Market opened its doors at 808 Main St., in the space that once housed the beloved Brother Tom's Bakery.
The market is a nonprofit enterprise of Second Harvest, a Sharpsburg-based organization that has long operated a community thrift store on Clay Street. When Brother Tom Hartman closed his bakery due to illness, Second Harvest Executive Director Bonnie DeMotte saw an opening — in every sense of the word. The organization purchased the 3,000-square-foot building last year and engaged Strip District-based Rothschild Doyno Collaborative, the firm behind the thrift store's own renovation, to design a space that is at once a full-service market and a community gathering place.
The result is something Sharpsburg has never had before: a bright, modern grocery with a deli, a bakery counter, and prepared meals made fresh by an in-house chef. Shoppers can pick up produce, quality meats, pantry staples, and grab-and-go lunches without leaving the borough. Prices are set below market value, and the store accepts SNAP and Food Bucks through Allegheny County's Fresh Access program, which doubles the purchasing power of food stamp dollars when spent on fruits and vegetables.
"Buy local or bye, local."
Bonnie DeMotte, Executive Director, Second Harvest
DeMotte is deliberate about the market's dual identity — it is both a grocery and a hub. The design incorporates work by local artists, and reusable tote bags will feature original prints made by a Sharpsburg maker. The hope is to recapture some of what made Brother Tom's so central to the neighborhood: the casual encounters, the regulars, the sense of a shared anchor on Main Street.
Zero Waste, Zero Miles
Nothing goes to waste at Harvest on Main. Overstocked items and perishables approaching their sell-by dates are transferred directly to Second Harvest's Community Free Fridge at 624 Clay St. — a 24-hour, 365-day resource stocked with fruits, vegetables, meat, seafood, dairy, pet food, and personal hygiene items that anyone can access without a card or a question. The fridge has become a quiet institution in Sharpsburg, and the market's supply chain extends it further.
The arrangement also underscores a philosophy DeMotte returns to often: that food access and community investment are the same thing. Harvest on Main was fully staffed before its shelves were stocked, its recipes developed before its first customer walked through the door. That kind of preparation signals a market built to last, not to experiment.
What It Means for Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh's neighborhoods have long wrestled with food access gaps, particularly in smaller boroughs and hillside communities that fall outside the footprint of regional grocery chains. Harvest on Main is a quiet but meaningful counterpoint to that pattern: a local nonprofit identifying a gap, acquiring a building, investing in design and staffing, and filling the need with a model designed to be financially sustainable rather than charity-dependent. If it works — and early signs suggest the community has embraced it — it offers a replicable template for other Pittsburgh-area neighborhoods still waiting for their own corner market.
Harvest on Main Community Market is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 808 Main St., Sharpsburg.