Would it be appropriate to say it was as cold as hell in Other Avenues, an organic food store in San Francisco's Sunset District? Probably not, since hell isn't supposed to be cold, but I digress.
Now that I think about it though, the cold could also be attributed to the icy temperature outside the store. Since I was already cold, maybe it just didn't make much of difference for me. To be fair, the store did have vegetables and things to keep crisp, so I suppose the cold was necessary.
When you walk through the store, you're greeted with organic candles, spices, candies, fruits and veggies, breads, etc. In the front of the store is all the candles and incense, which smell like heaven and unicorns and fluffy kittens. It rivals the smell of the bread located a little ways away.
There were even free samples of some random wheat type of bread with nuts in it, but blech. It wasn't exactly my cup of tea. But a free sample is a free sample.
I did talk to Larry Bernard, a very tall older man, about the store. He'd been around since it opened down on Ninth Street in 1974. Its current location is near the beach on Judah Street.
"They've got everything," he said. "It's all organic and the people are nice."
The store's website has a detailed account of its history, starting with members of a group called the Food Conspiracy, which was a collective of a bunch of food buying clubs that wanted to buy and distribute wholesale food. They turned into an umbrella group called the Peoples Food System.
"Food for people, not for profit," was their cheesy slogan.
They created a bunch of stores like Other Avenues, but most of them bit the dust in the 1990s.
Bernard shops at this particular store every week, but confesses he goes to others occasionally when the store doesn't have something he needs – a rarity.
Right now they're out of a particular chocolate bar he's fond of. He said it's happened before with other things, sometimes resulting in a multiple week disappearance. Perhaps the store should invest in some of those "wanted" signs and offer a reward for recovered food.
Even though Bernard is a bit disappointed with those disappearances, overall he's absolutely head over heels for the store. He practically did a cartwheel while he was talking about it. Well, not really, but he was happy.
I first went to the store about a month ago when I was just browsing the Sunset. I didn't find much there, but I did find some delicious sort of bakery item. I couldn't tell you what it was, but boy was it tasty.
The store seems to fit well within the community, or at least the perceived San Francisco community where everyone is frolicking through the flowers with peace signs, cannabis and rainbow flags. Organic is the hippie way of life and it works well in the Sunset.
It's a bit on the pricey side for a broke ass college student, but if I did have some extra dough, I'd do a little shopping here when I'm not selling my soul to the man by shopping at Target or Safeway.
