about us

The Green Scene is owned and operated by Walker-area residents Erin Andrus and Theresa Bilben. Both Erin and Theresa had grandparents with farms near Walker, so they were introduced to fresh, organic produce early in life. Back then it was just called home-grown. Theresa's parents had a "kitchen garden" and a "big one" out in the field. "Nothing I ate was instant or packaged" recalls Theresa. Her grandparents owned a butcher shop and canned produce.

Theresa started working at Village Square when she was barely a teenager, in the ice cream shop and waiting tables, and just never left. While the trademark dishes of Village Square are pizza and ice cream, with made-from-scratch-sauce and dough, mind you, Theresa and Gary are always trying to come up with new dishes that incorporate fresh and healthy ingredients. They would like to go organic, when they feel their customer base is ready for the leap in price that would require.

Erin was born in Walker and lived here until until her parents moved to the Minneapolis area. She returned every summer to live with her grandparents and recalls eating the produce from her grandparents garden with rapture. "I remember at a very young age, walking in my grandfathers garden here at his home in Walker and picking a green pepper and eating it like an apple. I remember the juice squirting, I remember the sweetness. I remember how happy it made me."

Coming from a "food obsessed" family, Erin carried on the tradition by getting culinary training at a technical school in Wisconsin, working in kitchens, and eventually having her own catering business. She moved back to the Walker area in 2002 to be closer to her family and raise her two girls. She didn't consciously make the connection with organic food mirroring the experiences with food she had on her grandparents farm until she tried an organic banana six years ago. "I was blown away by the flavor," she says. "That was what first got me hooked, was the flavor difference in organic verses conventional food.

In addition to running Village Square, Theresa is a licensed real estate agent, and first met Erin over a real estate deal in 2006. Erin and Theresa's first foray into selling organic produce was having a stand at the farmers market at Turf Tech last summer, at which they sold produce and fruit and vegetable smoothies. It was there that they met folks who expressed their desire to have more access to fresh organic produce, and the idea for regular Green Scene "shares" was born.

Customer Testimonials "It's like having Christmas every week! The best thing the green scene has turned me on to is arugula. - Melanie R. "They provide most of the groceries for my husband and myself all for $25 a week! I know it's changed the way we eat and what we eat. We've tried new recipes, and I've become a much better cook! I love it." - Sara L. "The reason I started using the Green Scene is because I was spending extra (lots extra) to buy organic produce at my grocery store only to have it be poor quality due to not being maintained well. The produce from the Green Scene is so fresh it's like having my own garden!" - Gayle Y. "I'm starting to be able to taste the difference between organic and not organic." - Brandy R. "I'm a summer resident and I can't wait for my first share when I come to Walker! I love the online options for paying for my share and ordering extras." -Emily H. turnips, radishes, kale - oh mY! A Customer Testimonial When was the last time you ate fresh dill, turnips, radishes, kale, green butter lettuce, cheddar cauliflower, shallots or red anjou pears? I've eaten all these things things in the last few days only because I was forced. Well, I wasn't forced. It's just that those were some of the friuts and vegetables came in my Green Scene share in the last couple weeks, and I pay $25 for a share so I couldn't let it go to waste. I used to think I'd prefer to select my own produce, but having someone else choose $25 a week of it for me has forced me to branch out and boldly go where I have culinarily never gone before. After more than a week of sitting around in my fridge, the dill that came in the share from the week before was getting wilted, so I soaked it in some cold water to perk it back up, and then started think about how I could use it. In one day I created a salad dressing, dip, sauce and marinade which were different than anything I'd made before and utterly delicious. I was using fresh dill!! How proud am I! Seriously, to get beyond just salt and pepper and figure out how to incorporate fresh herbs into your cooking.....what an empowering, affirming feeling. In the last couple months especially, when no local fruits and vegetables have been available, I've really noticed a dramatic difference between Green Scene produce and the stuff I get at local grocery stores. The Green Scene stuff is generally smaller and tastes much much better. It's become increasingly clear to me that the Green Scene produce is where I'm getting my nutrition, while the produce I get elsewhere is largely just entertainment. Moreover, are the chemicals all over my grocery store peppers worth the amount of nutrition I'm getting from them, considering that nutrition is minimal since the soil those peppers are grown in is devoid of trace minerals, and the only way those peppers are growing is due to heavy heavy doses of fertilizers and chemical pesticides to keep off the bugs?? Barely... These are all the things that go through my head every week as I contemplate the gift that is the Green Scene. It's like have a personal shopper who's ensuring your proper nutrition. It occurs to me every week as I look at my share, that if I just ate the contents of that share, I'd have all of my nutritional needs met, while getting none of the chemicals. This past week I purchased strawberries from SuperOne. They were big and beautiful, but really quite tasteless. So, when you eat them, you get all the fruit sugar and calories, but so little nutrients. There will be strawberries in this week's Green Scene share. I'm looking forward to comparing them with their non-organic counterparts. -Hope Bank, Green Scene Customer