Sweetbay Supermarket, Kash n' Karry's vision for its future, has some of the upscale grocery touches the area lacks, but not enough.
By CHRIS SHERMAN
Published November 25, 2004
[Times photos: James Borchuck]
Asparagus is part of the extensive produce section that is a highlight of Sweetbay.
Sweetbay Supermarket is the “gourmet” prototype for Kash n’ Karry’s makeover plan. The one in Seminole is a new store. Converted Kash n’ Karrys will become Sweetbays starting in 2006.
SEMINOLE - In the days leading up to today, the biggest feasting day on the American calendar, there barely was a parking spot to be had at Sweetbay Supermarket, the spiffy prototype of Kash n' Karry's Version 2004. Some hunted turkey and trimmings, other pilgrims sought the gourmet grail, a sophisticated supermarket.
Where Tampa Bay area shoppers once dreamed of getting an Ann Taylor or a Nordstrom, the new icons of consumerism and big-city fashion are gourmet and organic supermarket chains such as Whole Foods Market, Wild Oats Market and Trader Joe's. We don't have them.
Oh, they have been tried, but Simon Schwartz/Giancola's in Tampa, Fancy's in St. Petersburg and the fabled Alessi's on Gunn Highway are gone. Others have been rumored but haven't arrived. Publix has opened ministores and superstores with celebrity chef cooking lessons and Fresh Market has opened, but our shopping list of dreams otherwise goes unfilled.
Now comes Shelley Broader, president of Kash n' Karry Food Stores Inc., with an ambitious plan to give her chain a major facelift and a new name. The Seminole prototype is new from the ground up; others will be converted Kash n' Karry stores. Another all-new Sweetbay is expected to open in Riverview next year; converted stores should open in 2006.
Sweetbay has all the typical supermarket fare, so it's not a purely "gourmet" market, but a very large grocery. It boasts 58,000 items, compared with 41,000 at a Kash n' Karry store.
Sweetbay starts, as it must, with produce, which fills the entry with a display perhaps 40 feet wide and much deeper, a Technicolor playground of fruits and vegetables. Lettuce - green leaf and red - romaine, radicchio and escarole are here, crisper and cleaner than I've seen in months. In the world beyond broccoli, where I like to saute, there's rapini, broccolini and yellow-flowered Chinese broccoli. Asian produce includes the extended family of bok choy and some real rarities, although yard-long beans were limp and the crenellated Chinese okra the most bitter green vegetable of my life. Latin fruit may be the biggest breakthrough, a wide rainbow from custard apples to pepino melons, fresher than you'll find at many bodegas (but not as cheap).
A tomato stand touts 20 kinds, although none is an heirloom. But on-the-vine plum tomatoes taste as pretty as they look, sun-dried grape tomatoes are clever, and ugly ripes are available. Foodies will miss precious items such as fresh wild mushrooms, haricots verts, baby veggies and squash blossoms, but Sweetbay/Kash n' Karry is not a niche marketer.
After produce, you're back in the modern supermarket, with new flash and traditional come-ons and disappointments. The bakery is the familiar factory of heavily iced cakes and cookies. Hard-crusted bread is the biggest lure for high-end shoppers these days, yet Sweetbay's best offering is Ecce Panis, a New York brand of "par baked artisan bread" for supermarkets. Shoppers who poked and squeezed each bag gently quickly sank into a doughboy tummy. When asked for bread with crust, the counter help didn't know what I meant.
The surprisingly small deli lacks spicy soppressata and imported prosciutto. Prepared foods are scant, although Sweetbay's upscale private label frozen entrees and appetizers include grilled vegetable ravioli and crabmeat tartlets. There's a decent selection of cheese, but all are prewrapped; cheese lovers want them whole. The seafood department has a minimal finfish selection. I did try a Claw Island, a Maine brand of frozen whole lobster, but I didn't see much advantage over a fresh one steamed.
The butcher counter is full of nice cuts and nice guys; they make a fine blueberry sausage (a specialty of Broader's former chain, with sage and fennel for a northwoodsy taste). The test they failed was duck breast; it's a must for gourmet cooks.
Wines include a reserve display of good bottles such as Tablas Creek and D'Arenberg Ironstone, which command high ratings and high prices, supermarket rarities.
If Sweetbay is not the answer to all yuppie prayers, it makes a good start with the produce and in renovating the grocer's image. So down with the pink and turquoise; hoist the new earth colors.
If you must have a brand-name one-stop gourmet store, then drive to Orlando or Miami, or wait (Sarasota gets a Whole Foods next month).
But you can eat better now if you support the small businesses that still care about food. On the way back from Sweetbay, I picked up loaves with real crust from Massimo Maviglia at Bread Artisans in Pinellas Park; he bakes with natural starter, lots of time and a little opera. I went past Trappman's on the St. Pete side of the Gandy Bridge, my usual stop for a dozen boat-fresh fish, crabs and tall tales. And just try getting a parking space at Mazzarro's in St. Petersburg.
We do have bakeries, butcher shops, wine merchants and a widening range of ethnic stores that always have real salamis, Italian pasta, good cheeses and olives fresh from the barrel. And there's farmland with roadside produce stands and you-pick fields.
Yes, decent lettuce is elusive, but if you seek out the small merchants, bakers, butchers and growers, you'll be grateful for the food and the people who bring it you.
