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Name::Farmstead
From::Alameda, California
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Sunday, April 09, 2006
SF Chronicle articleThe Alameda Marketplace was featured prominently in an article in the SF Chronicle on Wednesday, April 5th. Our own Dave Bloom was quoted for the article.
Here's part of the article:
...Sparked by the success of the Ferry Building Marketplace at San Francisco's Embarcadero, versions of the traditional public market have popped up in Healdsburg and Alameda. An upscale food court opened in Berkeley two weeks ago, a public market is scheduled to come to Napa next year, and there are at least three others in the works.
The markets hark back to a time when shoppers bought their meat from the butcher, their bread from the baker and their fruits and vegetables from a produce stand. But like the convenience of contemporary supermarkets, the public food mall allows independent merchants, as well as restaurants and cafes, to sell their goods under one roof. And they've become trendy destinations for tourists and epicureans.
...The Alameda Marketplace, a collection of small food retailers including the Alameda Natural Grocery, opened three years ago. Included in the assemblage of shops is a bakery, a kitchen gadget store, a sushi bar and a seafood company. Unlike Plaza Farms' emphasis on locally produced foods, Marketplace carries a wide array of holistic products, imported cheeses and wines and pre-packaged health foods.
"We just try to bring the best," says David Bloom, manager of Farmstead Cheeses and Wines. "Every cheese and wine here has a story."
The shop carries wines from as far away as Israel and India to as close as Paso Robles and Napa. Laminated cards with brief descriptions of the wines are placed next to the bottles, which start at $7.50 and go up to $300. Refrigerated cases carry 175 different hand-cut cheeses, including Prima Donna, a Dutch cow's milk cheese, a Keen's farmstead cheddar from the United Kingdom, a L'Etivaz Gruyere from Switzerland and a British Shropshire blue. The artisan cheeses range in price from $7.50 a pound to $30 a pound.
