Growing up as an Air Force brat, I’m pretty sure the only times I went grocery shopping with Mom, we went to the local base commissary. Not exactly emporiums of fresh food and delicacies, they were more small buildings stocked with staples.

When we moved to Germany I heard a lot of folks complain about the lack of supermarkets. Which, frankly, I couldn’t understand because I loved wandering the countryside and discovering little markets tucked into small villages. While some kids bemoaned the lack of Wonder Bread, I reveled in the tiny bakeries that offered warm loaves of rye and (to me) exotic dark breads.

Oh, and the butcher shops with meats hung in the windows and little vegetable stores with fresh produce displayed right on the sidewalk!

It was a foodie heaven for a novice foodie.

I missed those shops back in the USA where suddenly big supermarkets and big box stores were everywhere. Instead of shopping daily at a local market people were stocking up once a month at places like Costco. Supermarkets became supercenters and megastores with florescent lights and people wandering the aisles that you didn’t know, let alone the cashiers who barely looked up from the register to take your credit card.

Today in Houston, in the inner Loop area at least, we have a plethora of food stores. Central Market, Buffalo Market, the new H-E-B market coming on West Alabama, Randalls and renovated Krogers and not one but two Whole Foods Markets within spitting distance of each other.

But now comes a small movement to, well, small. Small markets with select, local food stuff and just a few friendly staff. Places that remind me of those European markets where neighbors gathered everyday to select dinner ingredients and wave to you.

Revival Market was one of the first, the brainchild of chef Ryan Pera and heritage farmer Morgan Weber. It’s the most delightful neighborhood market with locally sourced produce, housemade to-go prepared foods, sauces, vinegars, mustard, jams and jellies and picked veggies. Meats, milk and eggs and, oh, the charcuterie that Pera and Adam Garcia make and hang in the glass-fronted drying room. Sorry guys, if I left drool marks on the glass when you hung up that last batch of spicy Texas sausage.

Hardly bigger than your own apartment, Revival Market packs in the locals and food lovers who crave the experience of local shopping and connecting with their food.

And then there is Relish, more modern and sleek but not much bigger, it stocks local and artisan products and homemade prepared foods as well as some cool imported goodies like the jams and jellies from northern France.

And now comes Local Foods, a new concept by Benjy Levit, owner of Benjy’s restaurants (the news of which was broken on CultureMap). It’s a soon-to-open restaurant and food store located in the old Antone’s Import Co. next door to Benjy’s in the Village. The 3,300-square-foot space has been designed by Aaron Rambo of Found to resemble an old-time country farmhouse kitchen with retro-looking equipment and repurposed materials.

There are classic subway tiles and marble countertops, plus zinc and brass details, vintage neon lettered signs and old bakery carts. It’s retro cool and I can’t wait for it to open later this month.

Not only can you stop in for a meal by chef Dylan Murray or shop to your foodie hearts content and stock up on everything from custom root beer brewed by food truck fave The Eatsie Boys to local venders such as Animal Farm Greens, Texas Hill Country Olive Oil, Bee Wilde Local Honey, Pam Greer’s Texas Jurassic Salt, Hatterman eggs, Pola cheeses and Black Hill Farm’s pork.

“The Local Foods experience will focus on quality, convenience and variety,” Levit says. “We have been eagerly waiting to introduce the concept, and the timing was finally perfect with the availability of the former Antone’s space. The Village has proven an ideal location for us over the years, drawing a sophisticated, but diverse, audience amidst a dynamic, pedestrian-friendly setting.”

I love shopping at places like these, but I know it isn’t convenient or even possible for a lot of people in Houston. But I’d like to think that maybe we can get a movement going to open small, local groceries in much needed, low income areas of Houston where the only choices are often fast food chains and convenience stores selling pop and processed foods.

Just imagine what going back to the neighborhood grocery store model could do for obesity and other health issues that so many folks face today.

Sometimes smaller and simpler really is better. Isn’t that what our grandparents would say?