Midtown Farmers Market is a nice place to visit. But I wouldn’t want to stock up there.
The produce is ripe, the salespeople helpful, the prices reasonable. But look past the street theater charm and the Midtown market is a specialty destination.
A moveable feast built on fresh, edible impulses. Great for grazing. A treat for tourists. Not for real grocery shopping.
Real grocery shopping requires a real grocery store.
Fortunately, Sacramento has the best real grocery store in California. I’m talking about Nugget in Lake Crest Village on Florin Road.
Nugget wasn’t designed for shoppers who want cut-rate, house-brand bargains or pallets stacked with boxes of detergent. For knockoffs and clever names, visit Trader Joe’s. For buckets of peanut butter delivered by forklift, join Costco.
Unlike Raley’s, Safeway and Whole Foods, my favorite Nugget isn’t a small link in a big chain. There are just 13 other Nuggets, surgically deployed from El Dorado Hills to Corte Madera. The market started 99 years ago in Woodland. Today Davis is the home office.
Raley’s is proud and local, run from West Sac. But Raley’s is gigantic, with more than 200 stores, six separate names and 20,000 employees. If corporate headquarters moved to Phoenix, few customers would notice.
Vast, multistate chains turn grocery stores into blurs. Remove the private labels and Safeway is indistinguishable from Whole Foods. Shopping for groceries at big chains is reflexive, a matter of habit, convenience or necessity. Not a choice.
My favorite Nugget sidesteps the traps that wring pleasure from grocery shopping. The store honors its valley farm history without sacrificing quality or variety or gouging customers with specialty store prices.
The Lake Crest Village grocer is at once exclusive, full-staffed and humble. Diversity abounds with California fruits, vegetables, meats and fish. The store has gourmet options and common necessities.
One day at Nugget I counted 18 types of salt from around the globe. Plus regular salt. Staff are happy to answer questions, unlike many supermarkets.
If grocery stores reflect their neighborhoods, Pocket and Land Park tower over wealthier ZIP codes. High-flying Bay Area and Los Angeles communities have no supermarket chains to equal the farm-fresh celebrations found in Nugget’s aisles.
Two examples:
In the gilded Bay Area towns of Menlo Park, Blackhawk and Los Altos, shoppers stock their chef’s kitchens with supplies from Draeger’s Market, a three-store chain.
Customers arrive in Bentleys and Land Rovers. They enjoy a first-class experience. Wine selections and meats are superb.
But a Nugget customer who wanders into Draeger’s produce department wonders if delivery trucks are on strike. Where did all the fresh fruits and vegetables go?
Things are worse in Los Angeles. In moneyed Southern California communities, the best grocery store is Gelson’s, a Japanese-owned chain with 27 stores.
Gelson’s promotes attentive service and quality meats, fish and produce. Stores are bright. Staff are professional.
But Gelson’s lacks Nugget’s joyful abundance. Nobody delivers the Central Valley’s ag bounty like Nugget.
(At this point, some readers might wonder about an LA chain called Erewhon, popular with celebrities and social media sycophants. Erewhon is an overpriced, prepackaged health foods chain, not a real grocery store.)
Running a grocery store in Lake Crest Village takes courage. The center was a supermarket graveyard in 2003 when Nugget rehabilitated a dreary retail box abandoned by Safeway, Lucky and Food 4 Less during the previous 23 years.
Nugget tore down drywall, revealed hidden brick walls, built a coffee bar, bakery, kitchen and sandwich station. The grocer commissioned Michael Casey to create Art Nouveau statues for the exterior.
Eric Stille, Nugget CEO, showed me around the new store and explained how to create a grocery store that makes groceries fun. He had it all figured out.
“We call it a warm environment,” Stille says. “Studies show most people don’t enjoy shopping for groceries. We’re hoping to change that.”
R.E. Graswich can be reached at regraswich@icloud.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
