Great food, people and service!
This is one of the last "real" markets in the bay area
Fresh, quality, yaj you may pay a bit more but if you actually care about what goes into your body, make the sacrafice.
The staff working produce will help you out if you have questions. They actually know their products. One of the guys has seen me perusing a certain veg with a frown, looking like I can't find exactly what I'm searching for, and he'll come over and offer to help (and/or go in the back to see if something there will interest me). Granted, I've shopped here on and off for some time and so my face might be a little familiar, but it's not like we're buddies or something.
Same deal for the butchers' end of the store. They are the BEST!!!!! Do you even still have a butcher in your supermarket? There are several here. Lately, some young guys have come on board and they are learning the ropes (and that's cool b/c good butchers are a dying breed - at least ones the public has ready access to), but the rest of the crew knows their way around a primal cut.
Want your lamb rack frenched all the way down to the eye? Not a problem! The display case shows no sign of ground turkey breast? I'll go in the back and grind some right now, sir. You'd like those shanks split in thirds so that they'll braise more quickly? Coming right up.
I love that.
The display case is overflowing with beef, lamb, pork, chicken and turkey. If you want something a little more out of the ordinary like a capon for a holiday dinner or a rabbit b/c, well, you've just never tried cooking one before and want to give it a whirl to break up the weekly routine, just ask one of the guys. They keep such exotica in the back.
You can even pick up some pasture-raised ground beef or a fab ribeye steak here, courtesy of the folks at Humboldt Grassfed Beef. As far as I know, there's no USDA Prime here though; gotta go to a more specialized butcher (or restaurant) for that stuff.
I don't buy a lot of seafood here, although they do have wild salmon and petrale and dabs, etc., from time to time, as well as shellfish and partially prepared options for cooks in a hurry. I also tend not to frequent the middle aisles much so I can't really comment on selection or price.
One minus for me is that they switched their main deli meat purveyor from Boar's Head to Columbus. I don't hate Columbus, but I do prefer Boars Head. Oh well. When they remodeled they made the prepared food section of the deli much, much bigger. I tend not to buy much of that stuff so I can't confidently Yelp about quality there. I'll just go so far as to note that it appears to be pretty middle of the road stuff, nothing extravagant.
Oh, and while I haven't been in there yet, they added a wine tasting bar at the back of the store. Should be interesting, although I really don't want them to go overboard. I'm hoping they don't stray any further away from their "neighborhood" roots in the effort to go more upscale. If they are seeking a balance between the two, then they should hurry up and stop now. read more