When the Kims’ favorite local market in Freeport announced it was closing, they faced a choice many of us face in life: accept the loss of something valuable or step up to preserve it. 

They chose the latter. 

Less than two months later, they were opening the doors to their own store, embarking on a journey that would fill a gap not just in their lives but also in the community. Located in Santa Rosa Beach, Coastal Rancher opened for business in January 2024. What began as a race against time quickly blossomed into something far greater than a specialty grocery store. From its inception, Coastal Rancher has grown into a hub where locals and visitors alike can connect and learn about food and where it comes from.

Mitch and Kate Kims made Fort Walton Beach their home nearly nine years ago. When Mitch completed his active-duty Air Force service in 2020, the couple moved to Santa Rosa Beach. Shortly thereafter, they welcomed their first child. 

As a veteran-owned family business, they built their business on the same pillars that guide their lives: God, country, and family. For the Kims, these values aren’t just words on a wall; they’re woven into every decision they make, from the farms they partner with to the way they serve their community. 

In general, the couple has always been intentional about what they put into their bodies and now about what they feed their family. In today’s world, this manifests as a continuous search for places that offer the highest-quality, most transparently sourced food. Their first few years on the coast, they drove to a small Freeport market for raw milk, local honey, and grass-fed beef. They began to frequent the market often enough that the owner became familiar with them. Eventually, he confided in the Kims that he planned to close the business. Not ready to lose one of their primary food sources, they saw their opportunity and asked the owner a simple question:

“How do we keep this thing alive?”

As fate would have it, a commercial space opened in the heart of Santa Rosa Beach at the perfect time, and the Kims transformed the market into their own. 

“We took a few days and prayed on it,” Mitch recalled. “Twenty things could’ve gone wrong, but they all went right.”

Once the idea was settled, there was no time to waste. Over the course of just 45 days, during the holiday season, they moved into and renovated a completely unfinished space, coordinated multiple subcontractors to outfit the store, helped close the original Freeport market, and carefully pruned the previous market’s vendor and farm lists to curate their own refined selection of local farms and producers. All the while, Kate was working on branding and keeping people updated on their progress on social media. Her hard work and natural charisma helped build a strong online presence that generated buzz beyond the community before they’d even made their first dollar. 

On opening day, they were met with an overwhelmingly positive response. In fact, that morning, as the Kims entered a neighboring café, Stock and Brew, for a quick coffee, they were greeted by tables full of locals already waiting outside. People were hungry for what Coastal Rancher offered, both literally and figuratively. 

The philosophy of trusting the process drives everything at Coastal Rancher. More than 90 percent of its milk, meat, and eggs are sourced within a 90-mile radius of the store from farms they’ve personally vetted and with which they’ve built relationships. What started with just three or four farms quickly expanded to more than 20 local vendors.

“What a grocery store should be is a farm store,” Mitch explained. “We connect our community directly with the farmer.”

In many ways, Coastal Rancher reflects how the Kims fuel themselves and their two sons, Kaden, 4, and newborn Konrad. The same high standards they hold for their own family’s nutrition, they extend to every product on their shelves.

Walk into their store, and you’ll find more than just products; you’ll discover the stories behind them. Ask anyone on their team, and they can tell you about different types of feed, how various raising practices affect flavor and nutrition, why certain items are seasonal, and more. This knowledge offers comfort to shoppers, as if applying a “stamp of approval,” an unspoken promise that every product they offer has been thoroughly vetted.

Coastal Rancher has also become a place where people want to linger, ask questions, and share their own knowledge. Customers offer product recommendations, critique offerings, and engage in genuine dialogue about food sourcing and quality. This open conversation has led to the discovery of new vendors and strengthened partnerships with existing farms.

“Kate and I weren’t expecting it, but the connection to the community has been incredibly rewarding,” Mitch reflected. “[We] set out on this journey to solve a simple problem; the fulfillment that serving our community brings us has been an unexpected joy.”

As new parents, they focused all their energy on providing for, nurturing, and figuring out the endless puzzle of raising children. As new business owners, Coastal Rancher became a catalyst that helped them lift their gaze beyond their own four walls. In addressing a problem for their community, they found themselves forging genuine friendships not just with customers but also with local food producers who shared their values. 

Their success hasn’t come without challenges. Seasonal variations require constant strategic planning to meet customer demand, and explaining why certain beloved items aren’t always available becomes an opportunity to educate about the realities of local farming. For items that simply can’t be sourced locally (like single-origin olive oil from Greece, pasta from Italy, and carefully selected flour from Canada), the same rigorous standards apply.

“Is this something we want to put in our home? Is this something we want to put in our bodies?” Mitch asked.

The answer determines what makes it onto their shelves. 

What the Kims created isn’t just about convenience, though that matters. It’s about creating sustainable infrastructure for a food system that values proximity, transparency, and quality. They’ve taken some of the burden off consumers of researching farmers market schedules and off small farms of managing retail operations. In doing so, they’ve become exactly what they set out to be: a bridge between the people who grow food and the families who feed it to their children.

Sometimes the change you want to see in your community starts with one simple question: ”If not us, then who?”