Living across the Golden Gate Bridge from the “City that Used to Know How” is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that world-class culture is available for just bridge toll and the price of admission.
The downside is, with a wealth of world-class restaurants calling San Francisco home, many Marinites forsake the local nosh for a trip to Baghdad by the Bay. Though we could claim city-worthy dining when Bradley Ogden began churning out reinterpreted comfort food at Lark Creek Inn, the restaurant masquerading as a Victorian is in his rear view mirror these days, as he’s expanded his empire to such far-flung corners of the globe as Walnut Creek and Las Vegas. The mantle has been passed to the Buckeye Roadhouse, Sushi Ran and the Left Bank.
But there’s no shortage of things happening in the food business in Marin.
Let’s begin with some homegrown treats. The whirl around Roxanne Klein’s now-defunct raw food eatery, Roxanne’s, was intense. The Marin deli—and Klein, herself—gained national notoriety for turning out delicious dishes that weren’t cooked beyond 118 degrees (the temperature at which food still retains healthful enzymes). Despite wide acclaim and local popularity, the eatery went away. Now Klein, along with business partners Larry Brucia of San Anselmo and former Spectrum exec Neil Blomquist of Sonoma, have opened Roxanne’s Fine Cuisine out of Novato.
The business produces a line of foods modeled after the fare found in Klein’s Larkspur eatery. There are more than 30 choices of snacks, sandwiches, ice creams and cheeses that are vegan, dairy- and wheat-free and never sweetened with sugar.
Roxanne’s new offerings have found a home in Whole Foods, Andronico’s and local markets in Marin such as Woodlands and Paradise Foods. Klein and her partners are hopeful the business will go national.
Still on the organic trail, we wander out to Point Reyes Station, home of Sue Conley and Peggy Smith’s Cowgirl Creamery. Seems the famed cheesemakers outgrew their first Petaluma facility, so they’ve opened a second location in the town’s Foundry Wharf Business Park. Cowgirl is planning to give tours of its new facility beginning this summer. With the addition of the second Petaluma creamery, Cowgirl will be able to produce 10,000 pounds per week, which is a lot—no matter how you cut the cheese.
Sorry.
The organic offerings all start with milk from Straus Family Creamery in Marin, though most of the Cowgirl line will now come out of the two Petaluma locations, with the original location in Tomales Bay Foods producing cottage cheese as well as the Red Hawk variety (a cheese that owes its trademark orange rind to a bacteria found on the coast). Besides the Point Reyes location, Cowgirl has retail locations in the San Francisco Ferry Building and in Washington, D.C.
John Sarran has long been known for turning out great food at Bubba’s Diner in San Anselmo. But he’s recently opened a custom wholesale pasta business, Marin Pasta Works. It began when Sarran couldn’t find any organic, fresh pasta that met his high standards.
Today, Sarran can make as many as 45 different cuts and types of small batch pastas and raviolis, including made-to-order items for restaurants. Sarran is even taking clients’ fillings to customize raviolis to fit different menus. He’s also selling his new pasta products out of Bubba’s and, in the not-too-distant future, may offer them at North Bay grocery stores.
In Tiburon, Ed Carew and his wife, Jennifer Rebman, have opened Cottage Eatery on Main Street. The restaurant is in the same location as the old Servino’s and offers American food but with pronounced French and Italian accents. Competition is tough in Tiburon, with such stalwarts as Sam’s Anchor Café and Guymas also located on Ark Row.
Though the old Bobby’s Fo’c’s’le Café was lost in a November 2007 fire, it’s risen from the ashes in downtown San Rafael. The old café was a popular hangout on the water at Loch Lomand Harbor before the $400,000 worth of fire-induced damage. The new Fourth Street location is owned by Bobby Boyett and his mom, Helen. While the colorful sailing motif was thrown overboard, the new digs offers a much larger kitchen.
Mill Valley will see two new businesses open up. Perennial San Francisco favorite, the Balboa Café, will open a North Bay location this fall. The new eatery will go into the space vacated by Jenny Low’s when she left for Petaluma. (Napa residents know of the Balboa Café’s business cousins, Plumpjack wineries, Farm restaurant, Boon Farm Cafe and the Carneros Resort.)
The original Balboa is located in the “Bermuda Triangle” of San Francisco, a Marina-area neighborhood near Filmore and Greenwich that’s filled with bars and restaurants. Popular with locals, the neighborhood picked up the moniker because many a memory has been lost after a night in the Triangle.
TV celebrity chef Tyler Florence is opening a cookware store in the space where the old Banana Republic flagship store was on Throckmorton Avenue. Though no date has been set for the opening, it’s expected to debut this year.
Florence of late has been hyping a whole range of products that may wind up in his store. He has a line of cookware for Mervyn’s, his cooking tips are found on AOL and you can see the Mill Valley resident on the Food Network as well as on commercials featuring that well-known gourmet eatery, Applebee’s.
The Mill Valley cookware store is the first retail store for the TyFood Media empire. Florence is also staying busy by opening his first restaurant for Personality Hotels in San Francisco’s Hotel Vertigo.
