Grocery Outlet to set up shop in SF

In a city so in love with food and all sorts of nifty ways to get it, it’s perhaps still kind of bizarre that we don’t have more grocery stores.

Think about it.  We’ve got lots of small corner stores and farmers markets, and food that travels on bus wheels. But we don’t have too many good ol’ affordable grocery stores.

Thankfully, that could be changing in the not-too-distant future, as The City could be getting not one, not two but three new grocery stores — in neighborhoods that sorely need them.

San Francisco city officials announced Wednesday that two new Grocery Outlets and possibly a Fresh & Easy have sites leased to them, the Examiner reports.

Company spokesman Charles Goodyear told the Ex that the Berkeley-based Grocery Outlet is set to return to The City with stores in the Outer Richmond at Geary and 28th, and in Visitacion Valley on Bayshore near Geneva. Both are expected to open in summer or fall of 2013.

The proposed launch of the Fresh & Easy on Ocean Avenue near City College is expected to be decided on Thursday by the Planning Commission.

The City College site will be the second full-service grocery in that neighborhood, but supervisors for the other two neighborhoods are excited to start building their neighborhood’s first discount grocery stores.

Supervisor Malia Cohen told the Ex that Visitacion Valley:

“… has been working for years to attract and sustain a grocery store.”

Richmond supervisor Eric Mar said in a statement about Grocery Outlet that the store:

“…offers San Franciscans the healthy and affordable food choices I have been advocating for.”