Just a bit behind schedule, Fresh & Easy is set to open their first of several San Francisco stores tomorrow at Clement and 32nd Avenue in the Richmond. As we reported earlier, the British grocery chain — which is kind of like a cheaper, less worldly version of Trader Joe’s with an emphasis on prepared foods — has another store in the works for later this summer at Third and Carroll Streets in the Bayview, and a possible third location in Portola at Silver Avenue and Goettingen Street planned for next year. Jonathan Kauffman at SFoodie heads down to the already open Pacifica store to get a preview of the product array, and gives us a few thoughts.
“The [pre-packaged] meals are refrigerated – not frozen – with expiration dates set within a day or two. SFoodie can’t say that the salmon with honey-mustard sauce, baby spinach, and roasted potatoes that we tried was to our taste, but we’re DIY cooks – it was better than half of the frozen meals we’ve tried.
The rest of the shelves are stocked with a mix of mainstream and proprietary brands – we’d estimate 40 percent of the merchandise is Fresh & Easy – and while there’s a small produce section (again, think Trader Joe’s), all of it is prepackaged and much of it is cut up for steaming, roasting, or sauteing.”
Also, he doesn’t quite get what market they’re aiming for — especially with polar opposition location choices like the Bayview and Danville — but that seems to be their m.o.: to confuse us.
Fresh & Easy - 375 32nd Avenue at Clement - Opening June 22
Previewing San Francisco’s New Fresh & Easy Markets [SFoodie]
Earlier: Fresh & Easy Opening Three, Possibly Four Stores in San Francisco
