Store Tour: Bites by the Bay 2012

In San Francisco, creative retailers are finding opportunities in high-traffic shopping neighborhoods as well as distinctive repurposed spaces (think steel shipping containers). Read on to learn about some of the innovative new shops that opened in 2011.

by Laiko Bahrs

Photos courtesy of Terry Giang, the Pastry Cupboard and happy girl kitchen co.

Chantal Guillion

Macarons Versailles-style, Sold in Seasonal Flavors

Brightly colored, filled macarons were the cookie of Chantal Guillion’s childhood in Versailles. She baked them with her mother, or ate many from the numerous patisseries that sold the storied confections. After moving to the City by the Bay to be near her children (who, incidentally, own Bacetti, maker of the chocolate-covered gelato bites), Guillion opened her namesake shop in June, where her line of macarons are all to her taste and recipe, baked at her own facility in San Francisco and sold only in her shop.

Flavors change seasonally, with a dozen or more featured at a time in the shop’s gorgeous cases. Fresh and dried fruits are used for the pureed fillings, and fruits are added to color the almond dough (which is made with California-grown almonds).

Best sellers are the Pistachio, Valrhona Chocolate and Tahitian Vanilla macarons, as well as Salted Caramel, which was a surprising new flavor profile for Guillion—one she’d never seen during her time in France. The store sells around 1,000 macarons every day, through on-site and nationwide shipping orders. Parisian brand Mariage Frere Tea makes up the other half of the menu, and strategic pairing is encouraged. A popular combination is the Lavender Poppy macaron, with a marzipan and cassis center, paired with Vert Provence (lavender green tea).

Ferry Building Marketplace: Soy Beanery, Jarred Produce, Gluten-Free Bakery and More Openings

The iconic Ferry Building has added a few new retailers to its handpicked selection of local goods.

La Cocina: This nationally recognized cultivator of food entrepreneurship has carved out a small but mighty kiosk in the market. It features sweets and savory packaged goods from Clairesquares, Kika’s Treats, Neo Cocoa, Estrellita’s Snacks, Sabores del Sur and refrigerated products, such as Sajen Jam, Azalina’s Star Anise Curry and Coconut Jam, and the Love & Hummus line, plus a rotating menu of delicious grab-and-go lunches. lacocinasf.org

Happy Girl Kitchen Co.: Drawing from the abundant Central Coast farms, Happy Girl Kitchen Co. is a certified-organic producer of jarred vegetables (tomatoes, beets, carrots and pickles with herbs and spices), fruit juices and jams. The product line is popular at local farmers markets, and pickling workshops teach preservers of all skill levels how to get some happy in their home kitchens. happygirlkitchen.com

Hodo Soy Beanery: Hodo Soy Beanery’s second retail space features breakfast and lunch grab-and-go items, such as smoothies, parfaits, fresh tofu and yuba (soybean milk “skin”) salads, sandwiches and desserts. Offerings are made in Hodo Soy’s production kitchen in Oakland, where the company produces a line of fresh organic soy milk, tofu, yuba and ready-to-eat soy products—and offers monthly tours of the facility. hodosoy.com

Mariposa Baking Company: Mariposa’s popular gluten-free baked goods include freshly baked breads, cookies and muffins as well as savory items, such as frozen pizza and ravioli and fresh salami sandwiches to take away. mariposabaking.com

Little Vine

Charcuterie, Local Cheeses and Provisions and Self-Serve Olive Oil

On a narrow street in North Beach sits this charming gourmet-provisions shop. Founders Melissa Gugini and Jay Esopenko built the tiny store in August as an outlet for their favorite edible and quaffable essentials. For the lunch crowd they serve two daily changing sandwiches on Acme bread with cheeses and meats (charcuterie-salumis from La Quercia, Fra’mani, Creminelli and Il Mondo Vecchio) straight from the case. Cheese is naturally a big focus, with 20-odd varieties from Cowgirl Creamery (where Gugini trained as a cheesemonger), Tumelo Farm, Bellwether Farm, Laura Chenel and Pleasant Ridge Preserve. Yogurts and milks come from Straus Family Creamery, and in the cold case are fresh meats from Marin Sun Farms (a best seller). Heslet Honey from nearby Telegraph Hill sits side by side with local sweets from Clairesquares, Clarine’s Florentines, Double Dutch Sweets and CC Made. Also available are self-serve olive oils from Bozzano Ranch, farm-fresh produce from La Tercera Farm and Leadbetter’s muffins.

North Beach is a haven of coffee and wine, so Little Vine differentiates by featuring individual pour-over servings and espresso from Bicycle Coffee Co. (another best seller), and a small but high-quality selection of obscure wines from Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino selected by Esopenko, who has an inside track thanks to a long history in wine buying at California Wine Merchants.

A library ladder makes getting to the Girl and the Fig preserves and Rancho Gordo beans a breeze; and a unique offering is a picnic-basket rental, perfect for a getaway to one of several nearby parks or the waterfront.

The Pastry Cupboard

Handmade Strudel, Croissants, Turnovers and Specialty Pies

Former Slanted Door executive pastry chef Chona Piumarta opened The Pastry Cupboard retail space in the Hayes Valley/Civic Center neighborhood in September. Piumarta was inspired to expand her wholesale baking business to get closer to her customers and watch them enjoy her desserts—as she loved doing in top-notch restaurants.

The corner space, with windows on all sides, is centrally located in outer Hayes Valley and serves the local community. At breakfast, pastries such as a many-layered fruit-and-almond strudel, croissants and fruit turnovers are available; lunch features focaccia sandwiches (the grilled cheese is a must), salads and Piumarta’s extensive array of baked goods. Her signature sweet is a blueberry custard pie, which she’s cultivated over the years on every restaurant menu she’s overseen. You’ll also find gorgeous fruit pies, latticed and laden with local fruit and handmade butter pastry, as well as chocolate mousse cake and many varieties of fruit pies and cookies.

Sightglass Coffee Roasters

A House of Worship for Coffee Including Cuppings and Seasonal Bean Harvesting

There’s a new coffee darling in town. Sightglass was founded in 2009 by brothers Justin and Jared Morrison as a simple kiosk on the site where their current roastery and retail space lives. The 4,000-square-foot facility, opened in July, is dedicated to the worship of coffee, with an altar (of sorts) where guests order coffee drinks and beans, and commune with a cup and fellow parishioners.

Beans are roasted following the harvest calendar: Latin American beans in late summer and African and Indonesian in winter. The brothers source green coffee from boutique importers, and direct from a few small farms; the beans express the inherent terroir of their home turf—from elevation to soil varietals. With 10 to 15 types of beans served on-site, roasting differs for each, and the Sightglass team strives to bring out the individual natural subtleties, characteristics, notes and flavors.

Coffee drinks include pour-over and a full espresso menu from a selection of single-origin coffees beans. Hungry visitors can pair drinks with Firebrand brioches (from Oakland) and Piccino baked goods from the neighboring Dogpatch district.

Situated upstairs is the Coffee Lab, offering cuppings and education for wholesale accounts and staff; it’s slated to expand to the public in early 2012. Sightglass is also sold at the Breslin in the Ace Hotel in New York City, at Burista in Portland, Ore., and at a few local retailers in San Francisco.

Smitten Ice Cream at Proxy Project

Treats in 60 Seconds with a Hand-Welded Machine Named Kelvin

Hayes Valley’s Proxy Project has drawn national attention since its launch early last year. The Proxy Project is a unique space combining shops, eateries and art installations in repurposed steel shipping containers for an innovative retail experience.

In the midst of this food and event space is the newfangled Smitten Ice Cream shop. Founder Robyn Sue Goldman spent two years inventing and developing a hand-welded ice-cream machine named “Kelvin” (for the unit of measurement for temperature). The Kelvin, powered by liquid nitrogen, makes individual servings of smooth ice cream in 60 seconds flat. Smitten’s custom machine alone is worth the trip—and the taste.

Using milk from local Beretta Family Organic Dairy, Smitten rotates its weekly specials to highlight seasonal ingredients, with flavors such as Gravenstein Apples with Honey, Pistachio Apricot and top sellers Vanilla and Tcho Chocolate. A house-made candied jalapeño is among the creative toppings, and customers can take their fresh-made ice cream in a cup, in a handmade pizzelle cone or pressed into ice-cream sandwich form.

Also worth visiting at Proxy is local roaster Ritual Coffee, which makes coffee to order, and on Mondays look for Avedano’s Butcher Shop and Market, which parks its Meat Wagon, a mobile butcher truck custom-made from a former ambulance. |SFM|

Laiko Bahrs is a culinary consultant and co-owner of Epicuring, an online calendar of food experiences and events in California.

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