Sustainable shopping finds new home in Soldotna

One of Soldotna’s sustainable shops just got a lot bigger.

The Goods + Sustainable Grocery, as well as Where It’s At mindful food and drink, operate as an environmentally focused cooperative. The cooperative has a new home at the intersection of the Sterling Highway and Kalifornsky Beach Road.

Anastasia Scollon and Willow King are co-owners of the establishment, which used to operate out of Cook Inletkeeper’s Community Action Studio in Soldotna. The Goods and Where It’s At’s collection of sustainable home goods and locally sourced food outgrew its former space, King said, and she’s been keeping her eye out for bigger buildings.

“Anastasia and I really started heavily collaborating at the beginning of 2021,” King said. “By the beginning of summer 2021 … we really started to recognize that we were growing way too fast for our space to keep up.”

The group’s new site formerly housed Firehouse BBQ, which closed last summer.

King heads Where It’s At. She said her role is to build momentum around local food sources and help educate people about how to prepare, store and process whole foods. When fully complete, Where It’s At will offer locally sourced grab-and-go meal options as well as the Elixir Cafe and Juicery.

“I don’t really tell anyone how to grow it but I can help you network with people who can,” King said. “(I try to connect) people to their food choices in a meaningful and really broad way.”

Those grab-and-go meal options are one of the ways King said she and Scollon hope to make sustainable living more accessible to people on the central Kenai Peninsula. Where It’s At’s hours are designed around when people are driving to school or work, or when people are looking for something quick during a lunch break, King said.

“We are just really all about connecting community members to sustainable living choices that are easy and convenient and accessible,” King said.

Shelves holding everything from locally made soap, to bamboo straws, to jars of toothpaste powder, line the building’s northeast wall, while the future site of the cafe and juicery sits opposite. The Goods also acts as a refillery, where people can bring back their own containers and stock up on locally made cleaners like hand soap and all-purpose cleaner.

In all, The Goods and Where It’s At feature products from more than 40 individual vendors, including artists and makers on The Goods side and farmers and food producers on the Where It’s At side.

King said Where It’s At is an important response to food insecurity in Alaska and counteracts struggles residents may encounter if supply chains are disrupted. King said she doesn’t expect demand for local products to soar overnight, but that increasing accessibility to the market is a “baby step process.”

Where It’s At and The Goods are located at 45015 Kalifornsky Beach Road in Soldotna and are open between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. More information about The Goods can be found on the its Facebook page or at thegoodsalaska.com.

Reach reporter Ashlyn O’Hara at ashlyn.ohara@peninsulaclarion.com.