Eataly, San Jose

In case you didn't know the cuisine that Eataly serves

Chronicle food writers have been effusive about Eataly, which just opened its ninth U.S. food hall in San Jose.

it’s Italian food heaven, and it’s finally here. The epic, three-story Italian food hall’s first Bay Area location opens at the Westfield Valley Fair mall in San Jose at 5 p.m. on June 16. If the yearslong anticipation is any indication, there will likely be throngs of people waiting in line.

With two restaurants, a cafe, gelato shop, bakery, butcher, seafood counter and market stocked with thousands of imported Italian goods, there is no other food hall like it in Northern California.

I happened to be in the area on Monday and had to check it out. Eataly spans three floors at the Valley Fair mall, and the "throngs" were such that foot traffic had to enter at the ground floor and all other access points were exit-only.

It looks empty but the next reservation was Friday

There was an hour wait for take-out, and the sit-down restaurants were completely booked. We're just here to shop at the market, we told the man at the entrance. We hurried up to the second floor, which was all wine:

Shelves stocked with over 1,200 wine labels stretch to the ceiling inside Eataly’s wine shop on the second floor. Everything is imported from Italy, from small-production sparkling wine to Lambrusco and a wide selection of Barolo.

(Chron photo)

Bottles range from $20 all the way up to $1,000 for rare wines stored in a temperature-controlled room. There’s also a small selection of liquors — grappa, amaro, limoncello — and local beers.

On the top floor was the market, a wondrous display of Italian comestibles. Fresh meats, produce, breads, pasta and cheese were either made on the premises, imported from Italy, or sourced locally.

We didn't buy anything; the local Whole Foods' selection is much more limited but is enough to satisfy our untutored palate.

It's problematic whether Eataly is going to make it in the long run. The buzz is enough to make it a shopping and dining destination for several years, but Bay Area shoppers are fickle.

Sony's Metreon Center opened to great fanfare, as did Union Square's FAO Schwarz, over 20 years ago.

Since those halycon retail days the Metreon has been sold and resold, while FAO Schwarz declared bankruptcy and closed its store.

Commercial space, already costly in the Bay Area, is very expensive when companies like Sony, FAO Schwarz, and Eataly customize their spaces to attract upscale crowds.

The trick is having them come back over and over to buy their expensive wares.

We won't be in that group but do wish them well.

Pride and Pressure

I first noticed variations of the guilt-inducing question at the Costco and Whole Foods checkout counters:

"Would you like to donate a dollar to XYZ charity?" or
"Would you like to donate to XYZ instead of claiming a bag credit?"

Under the watchful gaze of the cashier and the people in line, I usually decline the invitations, but sometimes I succumb to social pressure and say yes.

(For the record--and realizing that this is defensiveness and pride talking--I have always itemized our deductions, thanks in part to charitable donations that are high for our income, at least that's what the IRS says. Furthermore, why must I give to Costco's XYZ when my donations to ABC also address the same need, for example, children's health?)

Now similar social pressures are being applied at takeout counters, where pay screens are becoming common. The pay screens come with tip suggestions.

Tapping "no tip" requires courage.

Consumers face that disconcerting ritual at bakeries, coffee shops, food trucks and other businesses that use tablet credit-card readers such as Square. The devices often ask customers to make tipping decisions on the fly—with the person who just served them looking on, along with everyone else waiting in line.

“It guilts you into it,” said Thom Kenney, a patron at Squeeze Juice Company in Boston on a recent morning. “It absolutely does, because they are standing there. You want to make them happy.”

Now that I see what the tech manipulators are doing--nudging me to doing their version of the right thing under social pressure--I will steadfastly decline to tip or donate at the pay screen, unless I've received table service. Yes, I will probably experience the disapproval of strangers whom I'll never see again. (Actually, I will try to avoid those establishments altogether.)

It's an ancient lesson, all but forgotten: one does not acquire virtue by trying to appear virtuous in front of others.

Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:

That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.
-----Matthew 6:2-4

Amazon's Whole Foods App: Check Your Receipts

The app page on the WF site.

The member of our household who shops at Whole Foods eagerly downloaded the new Whole Foods app onto her iPhone. She would be eligible for special deals and 10% off yellow-tagged items.

Sure enough, the Whole Foods meat counter, whose prices are typically 20%-50% higher than Safeway, Lucky, or Costco, had a promotion on beef kabobs. The $10.99/pound would be reduced to $7.99/pound when she used the app at the register.

Below are the costs before the discount:

But here's what happened at the register:

The total cost of the two items ($17.47 and $18.13) was left the same, the price per pound was reduced to $7.99, and additional weight of about half a pound each was added to make the multiplication work out.

Fortunately, our household shopper checked the ticket and spoke to the manager (your humble blogger often does not audit because he trusts computers and is lazy). The manager apologized and reversed the erroneous charges completely; so we got the kabobs for free (aside--note the peculiarity of American English: "the kabobs for free" sounds a little better though "the kabobs free" means the same thing and is a more efficient wording). The corrected price would have been $25.89.

We were happy with the result, but think of all the (thousands?) of Whole Foods app users who don't catch these mistakes.

It pays to check your receipts.

Appreciated by the AARP Crowd

In the great Costco vs. Amazon debate (we regularly buy from both) Costco gets more of our shopping dollar, even combining our Whole Foods spending with Amazon. One of Costco's advantages is the value proposition of its private Kirkland label.

Kirkland jeans are under $15 and reasonably durable, but lately my two pair have been getting a little snug--from repeated dryings, of course. "New relaxed waist" is a timely innovation that might turn off the skinny teens and 20-somethings that shop at Costco but will be appreciated by the AARP crowd.

Lots of marketing data went into this one.

Green Power

With great change comes great tweets

Amazon's acquisition of Whole Foods is just the latest chapter in goliath tech taking over the world:

This trajectory wasn’t obvious 15 years ago. You couldn’t guess that a handful of companies would leverage their expertise, talent pools and capital to eat industries outside their own, or that they would become planet-spanning conglomerates that are as likely to spin up their own Fortune 500 companies as buy them.

What does a company like Apple, which has a quarter of a trillion dollars in cash, do with all that money? Anything it wants. The same is true for Amazon, Facebook, Google and “Elon Musk Inc.,” an entity with so much marketing savvy and personal charisma that he is able to call upon the financial markets for fresh infusions of cash whenever he needs them, no matter the financials of his ventures.

Here are some thought experiments: Will Amazon eventually sell you personal transportation? Will Apple start a bank? Will Facebook buy a cable network? Is Elon Musk going to build a standing army?

Your humble blogger does not fear Amazon (though Alexa will never darken his door) and eagerly looks forward to Whole Foods stores where
1) Shopping carts will be bigger than shopping baskets;
2) Twinkies are stocked on the shelves;
3) No one will be shamed because they didn't donate;
4) One doesn't have to dress up to enter.

A Slice of Heaven

Black gold from Santa Rosa, CA (Chron photo)

It took over 100 years for Napa and Sonoma wineries to be declared the equal of their venerable French counterparts at the "Judgment of Paris" in 1976, but North Bay orchards--some using vineyard lands--are on a much faster track to competing with another renowned French export: [bold added]

Several weeks ago...was the first successful harvest among several orchards betting on Wine Country as the world’s next great truffle-growing region.[snip]

High-quality imported fresh black truffles typically cost $800 per pound and are at their prime up to four or five days after harvest, about the time it takes to fly them from Europe or Australia

Growing truffles, like making wine, is a multi-year endeavor.

Preparing the site for your truffière requires the most labor. Remove all trees, stumps and root systems from previous growth, then test your soil. Since truffles require a soil pH of 8 to 8.3, United States growers must apply agricultural lime before planting.

Once your soil is prepared, consider irrigation. Maturing [oak and filbert] trees require about an inch of water a week. When growing truffles, you do not plant one or two trees; you plant one or two acres of trees. If watering the trees proves too labor-intensive, you will likely abandon your orchard and your investment.

For a few seconds I entertained the idea of becoming a gentleman truffle farmer, but tending to two acres of trees is too steep a price, especially without seeing any results for the better part of a decade.

Here's hoping that California truffles will be on sale at Whole Foods or Costco in the not-too-distant future. If they're under $100 a pound, I'll cut me a slice or two.