What began as a hobby to explore mushrooms turned into a full-time job and business in 2021 for Warren and Andrea Gwartney.
Based out of south Arlington, the Gwartneys offer gourmet produce and wellness through these mushrooms they grow straight from their farm:
Lion’s mane
Reishi
Pink oyster
Blue oyster
Shiitake
Maitake
Cordyceps
Enoki
Beech
King trumpet
Chestnut
Blue oyster mushrooms are one of the many types Mushroom Street Farms offers. (Nicole Lopez | Fort Worth Report)
The Gwartneys’ farm is operated through an intricate system to successfully grow mushrooms, from planting the spores to full cultivation.
Mushroom Street Farms also sells growing kits and teas, caffeine products, tinctures and supplements made with ingredients from the Gwartneys’ mushrooms.
Contact information:
Location: 8001 Valcasi Drive, Suite 101, Arlington
Phone: 214-945-0506
Email: info@mushroom.st
Website: Mushroom Street Farms
Facebook: Mushroom Street Farms
Instagram: @mushroomst.farms
TikTok: @mushroom.st
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Nicole Lopez: What made you pursue the mushroom farming business?
Warren Gwartney: I’ve been in software development for 25 years. I’ve always had a little moonlighting business but went back and got a job inside of the corporate rounds. But I’ve always had that entrepreneurial bug to do something.
When I started growing mushrooms, it seemed like there was a lot of room in the market. There are some other mushroom growers. But we just felt like we could do it more.
We still have a web development business that’s also very fundamental to our business. It basically helped fund the startup of Mushroom Street Farms.
Mushrooms are gaining in popularity and curiosity, not only for what you can do with it as a food but what it can do for you health wise. I’ve always loved that part of mushrooms, too. I’ve always been into supplements. The more I researched, the more I was intrigued.
Lopez: You sell a variety of mushrooms. Does the growing process vary by each type?
Gwartney: They typically do well at the same temperatures. A little cooler than room temperature is better. Pests and fungus gnats don’t like cooler temperatures, so it helps keep that kind of stuff away, including mold.
As a farm, we want the highest success rate possible. That’s why we sterilize our compost with clean air and sterile technique. In nature, it’s a numbers game. A mushroom sprouts, it puts out billions of spores. Maybe those spores never reproduce. Especially somewhere like Texas, the conditions aren’t as great. We’re doing this commercially, so we need it to be as successful as possible.
Pictured are enoki and chestnut mushrooms at Mushroom Street Farms in Arlington. (Nicole Lopez | Fort Worth Report)
Lopez: What do your other products consist of?
Gwartney: If we don’t sell our mushrooms, we dehydrate them. We use that to make seasonings and barbecue rubs. We have a product where the powder is like Kraft macaroni and cheese. You can buy dehydrated mushrooms, and we also make mushroom jerkies. We have a lineup of tinctures and capsules. We also do coffee and tea blends with different herbs and mushrooms added to them. We’re striving to be the everything mushroom farm.
Lopez: You provide wellness products made out of your mushrooms. What are the health benefits that come from mushrooms?
Gwartney: The biggest interest is in the lion’s mane mushroom. It’s a neuroregenerative, meaning it has nerve growth factor compounds that help your nervous system grow new connections. You can’t replace neurons, but you can make new connections and strengthen pathways so they can help improve your memory over time. They’re being studied for potentially helping treat Alzheimer’s disease. Even in short-term use, people generally will feel like a little less brain fog. That’s what we hear from customers.
Cordyceps is amazing because it helps cells make more energy. It’s good for energy unlike stimulants. Stimulants trick our brains into thinking we have energy, and that’s why you get a crash. Cordyceps helps your cells respirate and put out more energy. Athletes have turned to it, because it’s good for endurance. It also has another compound called Alpha GPC in it that just helps with neuro transmission. It’s become our most popular performer.
In Chinese medicine, reishi is called the mushroom of immortality. It’s been in use for over a thousand years. It’s used for its anti-cancer benefits. Its “immortality” comes from its metabolic health benefits, which is really the root of all disease — it starts in the gut. It’s amazing, people want to come up and talk to us about their problems and their issues and the things that they’re dealing with. It’s been fun to be some help.
Lopez: What do local mushroom farms offer that customers can’t easily find in big-box grocery stores?
Gwartney: Mushrooms, just like all kinds of food, go through this crazy distribution system to get to grocery stores, which results in fuel costs, a lot of labor. An advantage that small farms like ours have is that they just do better when going straight from the farm to the consumer or maybe even two steps. For example, we just started selling into a small distributor, so now you have our mushrooms delivered to your doorstep.
We get to have a business-customer relationship.
Lopez: You also have a mushroom boutique in Dallas. Where else can people find your mushrooms?
Gwartney: You can find us at the Dallas Farmers Market. We’ve also gone to Canton. We’ve done markets in Mansfield and Frisco. I would like to open a second micro farm somewhere to get closer to another group of consumers. We have extra space to distribute to Dallas restaurants or communities, if need be.
Mushroom Street Farms is based in south Arlington. (Nicole Lopez | Fort Worth Report)
Nicole Lopez is the environment reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at nicole.lopez@fortworthreport.org.
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