Townies and tourists explore Napa’s tastiest attraction.
A formerly sleepy stretch of First Street on the east side of Napa has become a bustling destination, as tourists and locals discover the city’s Oxbow district, named for the shape the Napa River takes as it undulates through the neighborhood. The new Oxbow Public Market, an $11 million, 32,000-square-foot faux barn (plus 8,000 square feet of deck) housing dozens of small shops, restaurants and farm stands, is drawing much-needed business to a community Wine Country visitors used to skip—and Napa residents are finding it’s a place for them, too.
“I see people I know there,” says Jennifer LaLiberte, who lives in nearby Alta Heights and works as a project coordinator for the city’s redevelopment agency. LaLiberte and other Napa officials are excited to have the new market, with its appeal to both residents and tourists: “It seems to be a very good fit, and it’s only a hop, skip and a jump from our historic downtown,” she says.
“I’m pleasantly surprised at how much early townie traffic there is there,” says Barry Schuler, Internet entrepreneur/former CEO of America Online and partner at DJF Growth Fund, whose family has owned property in Napa County for the past decade (where they’ve lived full-time for the last five years). “I think it’s very important to the whole economy of the lower part of the valley—and the valley overall.”
Hungry? Keep it local.
One immediate benefit is that Napans no longer need to travel north to St. Helena—or south to the San Francisco Ferry Building—for the famous burgers at Taylor’s Automatic Refresher, which opened on the corner of First and McKinstry Streets in January. Offering salads and fish tacos as well as its trademark beefy sandwiches, Taylor’s also has a well-priced wine list and seating both inside and al fresco. Lines out the door are routine, but service is quick and friendly.
Also from St. Helena, where it’s operated since the 1920s, the venerable Model Bakery has opened a stand-up shop just north of Taylor’s on McKinstry Street, baking and serving breads, pastries, pizzas and sandwiches. The bakery has Peet’s coffee and espresso drinks, yogurt-and-granola breakfasts and colorfully iced cakes for sale, too. For the bargain-minded, day-old items are half-price and “grab to go” bags of leftover breads are $2. Model Bakery opens at 7 a.m., earlier than most other Oxbow businesses, whose start times vary.
Fast food in the Venezuelan style is the specialty at Pica Pica Maize Kitchen, inside the main Oxbow Public Market building just east of Taylor’s on First Street. Pica Pica makes gluten-free, cornmeal-based meals like the arepa, a grilled, stuffed corn cake, and the “maize’wich” (grilled cheese on corn bread). Side dishes include fried plantains, yucca fries, salads and soups. Diners can sit at the Pica Pica counter or carry their meals to one of the market’s many public tables, indoors or on either of the sunny decks overlooking First Street on the building’s south side and the Napa River oxbow to the north.
Across from Pica Pica, on the south side of the main market building, Folio Enoteca and Winery combines a casual restaurant, a kitchen shop, carry-out and a microwinery—all in 800 square feet of space. Chef Sarah Scott’s menu is packed with local ingredients, from Rancho Gordo beans to meats from market neighbors Five Dot Ranch and The Fatted Calf, and every adult who sits down for a meal is offered a complimentary splash of wine to start things off. Like most of the shops and restaurants at the Oxbow Public Market, Folio is a family business; in this case, Michael and Dina Mondavi, the father and daughter behind Folio Fine Wine Partners.
Another place to eat locally sourced food is Oxbow Wine Merchant, where a small but versatile kitchen turns out light fare to accompany the shop’s wines (available as tastes, by the glass or in bottles). An offshoot of the Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant, the spacious store at the main Oxbow market’s northwestern corner stocks wines from Napa and far beyond; it’s also home to the Oxbow Cheese Merchant, which aims to outdo up-valley’s Dean & DeLuca in its selection and service. A changing menu of food, wine and beer is available at the wine bar and table seating inside the shop; guests can also order from their tables on the sunny riverfront deck outside.
The Oxbow Public Market is also home to Rotisario, the first stationary restaurant established by Thomas Odermatt, founder of the Roli Roti rotisserie trucks that visit farmers markets throughout the Bay Area. Odermatt can often be found behind the counter at Rotisario, serving his signature chickens as well as lamb, pork and side vegetables that are usually sourced from local growers. Raised in Switzerland, Odermatt is a second-generation metzgermeister (master butcher), a gifted rotisseur and an expert on organic farming. He’s adopted the Bay Area as his home because of its bounty of sustainably raised foods.
But he’s far from the only butcher at the Oxbow: Two men cut meat daily at the Five Dot Ranch natural beef counter, owned by the Swickard family of Susanville. Cattle ranchers for seven generations, the Swickards graze their herds on open pastures and rangeland in nine Northern California counties, producing beef without antibiotics or hormones. Five Dot Ranch has been inspected and certified for outstanding sustainable agricultural practices by the Food Alliance, based in Portland, Ore. The Oxbow shop offers all the traditional cuts along with harder-to-find delicacies like tongue, oxtails and sweetbreads.
Just west of the main building, on McKinstry Street next to Model Bakery, the Fatted Calf charcuterie stocks practically every domestic meat but beef: Check the chalkboard daily for what’s available in pork, lamb, chicken and a wide range of housemade salumi. Mom-and-pop butchers Taylor Boetticher and Toponia Miller moved their operation—and their family—from the East Bay to Napa, where they cut, prepare and cure their artisanal meats with partner Chuck Traugott. It’s no place for a vegetarian, but omnivore foodies will lust for the patés, porchetta, free-range hens and eggs.
Fish fanciers, especially those who’ve been trembling with anxiety over whether they’re making species-threatening choices at the supermarket, can satisfy both conscience and craving at Kanaloa Seafood. The highly regarded Santa Barbara fish market, which began in 1983 as a wholesaler to restaurants, is the only seafood company in North America to have attained ISO 14001 status, which identifies companies with sound environmental management standards. The Oxbow’s full-service Kanaloa shop will also ship anywhere in the United States.
Ready for dessert? The Oxbow outpost of Three Twins Organic Ice Cream, which opened its original shop in San Rafael in 2005, serves wholesome flavors like cardamom, pistachio and green tea in compostable cups or freshly made waffle cones. Founder/owner Neal Gottlieb uses no stabilizers in his ice creams and always offers at least one vegan choice, like sorbet and frozen desserts made from rice milk or soy. Gottlieb, a former Peace Corps volunteer who once rode his bike up Mount Shasta—starting in San Rafael—is working on a bicycle-powered blender that will let customers mix their own shakes.
Thirsty? For an experience that rivals sampling the Napa Valley’s finest wines—but without a molecule of alcohol—visit Tillerman Teas, where former Clos du Val winery CEO David Campbell has recreated the tasting room experience with fragrant, brewed teas. “The only thing we didn’t bring from the tasting-room scenario was the fee,” Campbell says: There’s no cost to sample. Table service is available in the market’s main hall; tea expert David Wong offers educational tastings by appointment.
If tea doesn’t suit your tastes, darker brews are available at Ritual Roaster, a well-regarded coffee business with locations in San Francisco’s Mission and Bayview districts.
Cravings for cacao can be satisfied at Anette’s Chocolate Factory, a downtown Napa institution that’s reached across the river to open its second shop. Visitors can sample Anette’s famed beer brittle and choose from a case full of chocolate creations, including truffles made with Napa Valley wines. The shop also stocks chocolate sauces, bars and gift boxes in an assortment of sizes.
After a bite and a beverage, it’s time to tour the Oxbow Public Market’s retail shops. Home cooks and professionals—including market chefs Odermatt, Boettinger and Scott—buy their herbs and spices at Whole Spice, operated by second-generation spice merchant Shuli Madmone and his wife Ronit. Shuli grew up on a spice farm in Israel and brings from his Yemeni family both a collection of intriguing spice blends and a warmly welcoming manner. The Madmones’ only shop stocks hundreds of bulk spices and dozens of blends, ground and mixed at their wholesale center in Petaluma.
Olive oil—bottled, or in bulk for decanting—is the main product at the Olive Press, which also stocks olive-infused products like body cream and salt scrub. Here, too, visitors are invited to taste the variety of flavors, with an array of oils in pump bottles ready to dispense into small plastic cups or onto bread cubes. Shoppers can buy bottled oils or fill their own containers from any of several stainless-steel dispensers offering oils pressed from different varieties of olive.
Plating and presentation
The Oxbow Public Market is also home to three owner-operated shops that celebrate food and drink without actually selling it: Fête, Heritage Culinary Artifacts and Kitchen Library. At Fête, Jackie Rhoades gathers a colorful and constantly changing assortment of what she calls “finishing touches for the at-home entertainer”—everything from fine European table linens and glassware to letterpress cards and invitations. Located between Pica Pica and Kanaloa, it’s also a good spot for gifts to suit practically any budget.
Just across the hall, sommelier Lisa Minucci fills Heritage Culinary Artifacts with vintage dishware, meat hooks, cleavers and other kitchen implements she finds during her travels in Europe and the United States. Many items are one-of-a-kind, like the wordless folk-art sign shaped like bread loaves to advertise a bakery and the vintage germinator, straight off a Midwestern farm. Chefs shop Minucci’s selection for more than décor: Her knives, cleavers and meat saws are clean, sharp and ready to use.
Another globe-trotter, photographer Steven Rothfeld, showcases his discoveries at Kitchen Library, a petite bookshop and boutique across from Tillerman Teas. Rothfeld sells not only the cookbooks and travel books he’s illustrated himself for authors like Francis Mayes and Patricia Wells, but other titles of his choosing. On his travels in France, Italy and beyond, Rothfeld has collected a cache of new and vintage gifts that include tiny, colorful notepads and other fine stationery; Italian soaps and cleansers and antique signs.
More to come
These businesses form the Oxbow Public Market’s “freshman class,” as Schuler puts it—but there’s more to come, starting with the much-anticipated opening of Hog Island Oyster Bar at the building’s southeast corner. Famous for its hand-raised oysters and grilled-cheese sandwiches, Hog Island should begin serving in September, bringing the fresh mollusks directly to the market daily from Tomales Bay. More restaurants and shops are in the works; Oxbow CEO Steve Carlin expects the building to be fully leased by the end of the year.
In the meantime, summer’s bounty is readily available both inside the building and on the east side facing COPIA, where farm stands are selling fresh produce and flowers; Tuesday and Saturday mornings through October, the Napa Farmers Market convenes in the parking lot. The Oxbow Public Market hosts a weekly “Locals Night” on Tuesdays, with shops open later and feature special promotions to attract Napa neighbors. Most Sundays, from 3 to 5 p.m., there’s live music on the river deck, where listeners can enjoy food, drink and natural scenery as well as the tunes.
Carlin, who helped turn the San Francisco Ferry Building from a dilapidated hulk into a thriving market, sees his new enterprise as “a business model that brings together the supply and the demand side in the same place,” where customers can buy directly from producers. But there’s more to the picture than mere commerce: Carlin sees the Oxbow Public Market as a gathering place. “It’s a community center for food, wine and entertaining,” he says. “That’s what it’s all about.”
Debra Dommen often strolls the market with her husband and their baby girl. “It’s part of the renaissance of downtown Napa,” says Dommen, executive director of the industry group Winegrowers of Napa County and a vice chair of advocacy at the Napa Chamber of Commerce. But she also worries that Soscol Avenue, a main north-south thoroughfare, represents a barrier between the old downtown and the Oxbow district.
Barrier or not, Oxbow merchants have a lot to look forward to on their own side of town: The 160-unit Westin Verasa condo-hotel, expected to open its first phase in September, is located just a block north of the market on McKinstry Street. Some 75 percent of its $500,000-and-up units have already been sold, and—in a further sign of Napa’s ascendancy—star Rutherford chef Ken Frank is relocating his La Toque restaurant to the property.
And Napa is expected to get even Ritzier, literally: The developers of a 10-acre patch of land to the east of COPIA have signed a letter of intent with Ritz-Carlton to build a 350-room resort, with a mix of traditional hotel rooms and individually owned condo suites. Planning commission hearings on the project may begin as early as this summer.
“The Ritz, I believe, pulls it together there,” says Schuler, citing the success of the hotel chain’s property further south: “If you look at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay, it’s packed all the time with conference business from the Bay Area, and that business will come up to Napa.” Filled hotel rooms mean cash for the city from its Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT), while visitors tend to spend more money locally than they consume in city services.
But, Schuler cautions, local government and businesses can’t fasten their hopes solely on the high-end conference and tourism business. “The whole key with downtown Napa is a balance,” he says. “You want to see a place where locals can shop and get services, and you also want to make it attractive to tourists.” Napa is in the hospitality business, he adds, but “I’d hate to see it turn into a place tourists can shop and eat, but locals can’t go.
That wouldn’t be a win…It’s a fine balance, and I really hope we’re able to pull it off. If we do, Napa’s going to be spectacular in 10 years.”
The Oxbow Public Market is open daily at 610 and 644 First Street, Napa. For hours and directions, visit www.oxbowpublicmarket.com.
