When Kristen Hindes opened Birdies in November 2023, she wasn’t expecting drivers to park off-site to see her market based on a word in the window — sandwiches — but they did. 

Birdies, a newly opened specialty market owned by Kirsten Hindes, lies at the intersection of Prince Avenue and North Pope Street adjacent to the Cobbham and Reese Street Historic Districts.

Birdies serves locally sourced vegetables, breads and coffee, as well as imported meats and cheeses. 

“It’s kind of like three businesses rolled into one,” Hindes said. “There’s a market, there’s a coffee bar and there’s the lunch counter.”

Menu Culture

Small, shareable plates are dominating Athens’ menus. Additionally, many restaurants are condensing their menus to highlight their strongest plates. Katie Hughes, a Red & Black eat and drink writer, said restaurants are trying to make their menu stand out from others.

“[Restaurants are] making it more of a staple as opposed to just having these, like, tons of menu items where it kind of doesn’t really connect,” she said. “There’s very specific things that you can pick from. They really curated their menu so that it reflects, like, exactly what they want.”

Birdie’s menu advertises its seasonal sandwiches, salads and soups that change almost weekly. Hindes shops from local farms — Diamond Hill Farm and Woodland Gardens — to garner inspiration for her next dishes. She says she curates meals from the available stock, and it’s changed the way she thinks about food.

Birdies’ Specialty Stock

Birdies has two imported prosciuttos — Prosciutto di San Daniele and Prosciutto di Parma. Hindes said Athens lacks a staple charcuterie producer, so she prefers to import her specialty meat and cheese selections from the north. She focuses on sourcing the produce, breads and coffee blends from small businesses in and around Athens.

“I just love supporting local businesses,” Hindes said. “As for the produce, I’ve always been kind of obsessed with cooking seasonally.”

Asparagus and green garlic, similar to scallions, are coming into season for the spring. Birdies will showcase the vegetables in a salad with a green garlic ranch dressing and an asparagus tartine with jammy eggs.

Joining Network of Small Businesses

In 2022, Clarke County saw almost 2,200 new business applications. Birdies has strong relationships with 1000 Faces Coffee and Independent Baking Company, just two of the small businesses in Athens.

Birdies sells Independent Baking Company’s pastries, wholesale loaves and sandwich bread daily. Hindes’ relationship with the head baker, Kevin Scallo, has prevailed through Scallo’s first price increase in two years.

“[The price increase] comes in under our threshold of what we want our food costs to be,” Hindes said.

Click the video below to watch Andrew McFarland, the cafe manager at Birdies, stock the market’s pastry case with fresh pastries from Independent Baking Company.

McFarland is close friends with 1000 Faces Coffee’s head roaster, Ben Myers. Myers recently became an importer of coffee and shares some of the exclusive blends with McFarland.

“We and 1000 Faces, kind of get access to this sort of like creme-de-la-creme stuff that he’s bringing in, which is like, pretty sweet,” McFarland said.

Watch the video below to learn more about how McFarland’s personal philosophy manifests through Birdies’ coffee culture.

A Gathering Place

Hindes draws a comparison between her market and a post office — no one thinks to go, but when people come in, they see friends from the neighborhood and end up chatting with one another for the rest of the afternoon. The market’s customer base, she says, is made of students, the neighborhood and people that love good food.

“Someone thanks me every day for being here,” she said.

The Future For Birdies

Hindes is focusing on cementing her current lunch counter and market strategies before tackling new endeavors. She’s planning to implement an online ordering system, catering program and grab-and-go cheese trays in the coming months.

“I’m not trying to do too many things at once,” Hindes said. “I want to do each thing properly before we add new things.”

Birdies is a multifaceted, artisan project from the mind of Kirsten Hindes. Since its opening in November 2023, it has showcased specialty meats, cheeses, teas and coffees to the #athensgeorgia community. pic.twitter.com/8lFo7EmnNN

— Helen Sorme (@helenssays) April 10, 2024

Helen Sorme is a journalism major in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.