Liquor Deli Grocery

One thing that I didn’t really make clear about Best and Fresh Market is that the people working there were working very hard. They may not really know what they are doing but they are serving a niche market of bargain hunters common to the neighborhood. I imagine that a lot of elderly people with a limited income are rummaging through the damaged fruit and coming up with the best of the worst—and picking up a carton of oatmeal and some soft rolls while they are at it. At least the place made an effort unlike the market Vic and I visited yesterday.

On the way to Vida’s soccer practice we passed by the Thursday night Off The Grid food truck conversion on Stanyan at Waller. For several weeks I had been promising that we could go get tacos for dinner but I never have any cash. After gathering Victor at preschool I was in search of a place where I could use my ATM card and get some more money. We stopped on Geary at 11th at a place that didn’t even seem to have a name. It just said Liquor Deli Grocery—two of which were over statements. They had a limited selection of “Liquor”. Some sad bottles of hard liquor were behind the shabby counter. Bottles of wine were spread a foot apart on the nearly empty shelves. I never will understand why people think spreading things out is the best way to display a limited amount of product. One compact and attractive display will always beat miles of shelves with practically nothing on them. They should just hang some curtains and pretend the rest of the store isn’t there.

As we walked in I asked what the minimum for the using a debit card was and whether I could get cash. The guy behind the counter said he didn’t work there but was just filling in and didn’t know the answer to either question but didn’t think he could give cash back. I was out of luck. There was an identity theft machine outside that said ATM but I didn’t feel like risking my unique set of personal identifiers to a possibly rogue cash dispenser. Looking around I was even more incredulous than usual about the amount of dust gathering on the few grocery items on the shelves—more foil than the entire neighborhood could go through in a year. The almost empty ice cream cooler had a few frozen pizzas and some Haagen Daz cups. Victor picked out a strawberry one. I picked up the ubiquitous Smart Food for Vida in case she was too hungry for words when I picked her up. There was a decent selection of beer and I chose a 22 oz. Alaskan IPA. I paid what I thought was way too much for our purchases and we walked outside where I promptly dropped and shattered my beer. I picked up the plastic bag now dripping and full of broken glass and turned around to see some pedestrians and an entire bus of Geary Street riders observing my bad fortune.

I was furious with myself. I tried to get over it as we made our way back to Rossi Park. Victor and I come to Rossi Park twice a week and inevitably one of those two days Victor needs to go to the bathroom just as we start having fun. The official park bathroom is locked at 5:30, before we even arrive and the pool is open so infrequently that I don’t think anybody ever swims there, let alone uses the bathroom. We have to get back in the car and drive back to work. In this case I still needed cash so it wasn’t all for naught. I walked in to one of the employees sitting down at the register and checking out his smart phone, which didn’t put me in any better of a mood. But we used the bathroom; I bought a replacement beer and got another five bucks cash to add to the ten I thought I had in my pocket. We had just enough time to play at the park before practice was over.

When we got to the food trucks I was excited to see so much variety, coffee, cupcakes, curry, Korean and Mexican food were among the choices. Vida knew what she wanted, carne asada taco with nothing else. She is a huge fan of El Tonayense, a taco truck we go to periodically on Folsom. We went up to El Norteno and ordered Vida two tacos and a quesadilla with beans for Victor. I consented to a couple of Mexican Cokes and the guy said it was $12 bucks. I looked in my pocket and found that that I only had two fives instead of the $15 dollars I though I had. He let me slide with just the $10 but then I started thinking that 12 bucks was a lot of money for two tiny tiny tacos and a just as tiny quesadilla. I guess they think they have a captive audience but if I had paid $12 for that amount of food I would have felt ripped off. My gratitude at his kindness was tempered slightly by the sense that I was overpaying in the first place. Because I didn’t have enough money to buy anything for myself I went back to my store to buy a couple of dry farm tomatoes and a red onion to add to the fresh cranberry beans I had cooked earlier. The kids were still hungry so I had to make them another quesadilla when we got home. I thoroughly enjoyed a bean salad and the ciabatta bread I bought on impulse at the store. We watched some Fireman Sam together and went to bed.

Vic’s Snack—Haagen Daz strawberry ice cream cup—Vida’s snack—Smart Food popcorn—Beer of the day Alaskan Amber IPA 22 oz.

Restaurant Total: 266