New grocery store, pottery studio to open for business in Brooklyn

Two new businesses, a high-end grocery store and a pottery studio, are set to open in Gowanus this summer.

Gowanus Marketplace and Hey Clay will both debut on the ground floor of a new mixed-use development, 420 Carroll, developers announced Thursday. The businesses will join hundreds of residential units, affordable artist studios, and a coworking space.

Hey Clay is a new pottery studio with a mission to “promote community wellbeing” by making pottery more accessible. According to the studio’s website, founder Cauvery Patel — who has lived in and around Gowanus for six years — started pursuing pottery as a hands-on, mindful hobby after the COVID-19 pandemic.

But she found that pottery studios were expensive and almost always booked up — membership waitlists were long, and newcomers often struggled to get into a class. So, she decided to start Hey Clay, believing there was a “different way” to run a pottery studio.

The Gowanus studio will be about 1,7500 square feet, with classes for both new and seasoned potters and “flexible and affordable” class options.

“I love living here, the unpredictability of the neighborhood is attractive to me — you never know what you might find around the corner,” Patel said in a statement. “I also appreciate its industrial history and its transformation into a hub for artists and makers. You can almost feel the creative energy! Gowanus’ evolution lends itself to the need for community-driven, hands-on activities and it seemed like a no-brainer to choose it for a modern pottery studio like Hey Clay.”

Patel is currently running a crowdfunding campaign so she can purchase kilns, wheels, and shelving for the studio. As of March 6, she had raised just over $16,000 of the campaign’s $45,000 goal.

Not far from Hey Clay’s front door, business owner Shogy Saleh will open Gowanus Marketplace, a 2,250-square-foot “premier grocery store.” The Marketplace is expected to offer local and organic foods, handmade sandwiches, salads, juice, smoothies, and a full cafe.

420 Carroll was one of the first mixed-use buildings developed after the 2021 Gowanus rezoning, and bears some hallmarks of the agreement struck with the city to allow the rezoning to go forward. About 90 of its 360 apartments were kept “affordable,” and the building will also have the first of about 100 affordable artist studios slated to be constructed in the nabe. Residential move-ins started last month, according to New York YIMBY.