Local chefs Vanessa and Phil Coulson have opened their new business Main Street Provisions, which focuses on elevated charcuterie.
The couple chose Chelsea for their shop after having gotten familiar with the area while working their food truck Sanich Union.
“We did the Sounds & Sights weekend at the end of the summer, and then we would do a pop-up breakfast at Agricole every Sunday,” Vanessa said. “So we just kind of got to know everybody around here, and it was great.”
After being offered a position at Chelsea’s The Nest, the Coulsons transitioned to restaurant work full-time and retired the food truck. When contracts between the Nest and the Coulsons didn’t work out, the chefs decided to begin looking for a space for a restaurant of their own.
“We loved Chelsea, and we wanted to stay downtown,” Vanessa said. “So when this space opened up, we were like, well, let’s pivot and do our second love, which is in charcuterie.”
Main Street Provisions offers a selection of products from across the country. Having trained in Boston before coming to Michigan to be closer to Phil’s parents, the two of them have maintained connections with a variety of suppliers.
“We’re using a couple that we used in Boston 15 years ago,” Phil said. “It costs money to ship things, but when a person or a company has products that you love, you deal with that, you just make it work.”
While their passion remains in cooking and restaurant work, Phil says this business allows them to grow these skills.
“The more you do this, the more you taste all these products, the more you learn about them, then you can use them again in another venue, in another way,” he said. “So it’s all about education. It’s all about learning where these things are from, how they treat their animals, and then building on that, and taking all of the other things that you learned in the past and making sure that your guests feel that.”
Main Street Provisions is located at 114 N Main Street, Chelsea MI.
Photos by Matt Rosentreter
8123 Main St Suite 200 Dexter, MI 48130
