The kitchen at Local Mission Market is abuzz today. Every burner has been 24 hours a day for the last three-plus days. Chef-partner Jake Des Voignes spent 12 straight hours on Sunday butchering meat. The rest of the kitchen, which overlooks the market area, is full of cooks. They are jarring, baking, slicing, pickling, extruding, mixing, making ricotta, hanging meats, casing sausages and labeling products for Local Mission Market, which opened this morning near the corner of Harrison and 23rd.
“It’s been a phenomenal rush of production. It’s exciting,” says partner Yaron Milgrom, who is finally opening his grocery store after years of planning and building.
Point blank: Local Mission Market is a very ambitious project. For Milgrom and Des Voignes, who also own nearby Local Mission Eatery and Local’s Corner, it’s an experiment that they’ve envisioned for the neighborhood for a long time. The 35 employees on site are more than both of their restaurants combined, and it’s probably fair to say that given the quality of product and the labor involves, the prices are going to be higher than the average Mission corner store.
It’s a gorgeous space, built out of an industrial building that dates back to 1935. Old exposed concrete floors and vintage windows give clues to its past as a horseshoe factory and a tobacco factory, though it has been nothing in recent years. The facade itself is a rarity in San Francisco: a 70 foot wide storefront that is all windows.
That transparency is something that the Local Mission Market folks tried to convey with their store. A stunning amount of food is made on site, and it’s marked as such on the shelves. As you can see in the gallery above, there is a lot on offer, nearly all of which is either produced in house or sourced locally from Bay Area friends and farms, almost like a new-age Bi-Rite Grocery for the other side of the Mission. There is bulk olive oil, infused with Buddha’s hand or rosemary. There is vinegar, bread varieties, cheeses, hot sauces, a butcher shop area, a fish monger, jams, spices, and fresh produce. And so on.
“When you walk in the door, you see the entire store. There are no aisles we’re hiding behind. You see into the kitchen, you see everything,” says Milgrom.
Local Mission Market is a new model as it relates to its sister restaurants. It’s suddenly a commissary kitchen of sorts for the restaurants. The chefs from Local Mission Eatery and Local’s Corner will get their products from Local Mission Market.
“We want people coming here to see our chefs coming here to shop. It’s the same level of product,” notes Milgrom.
The market kitchen will also supply the restaurants with things that can’t be made in the restaurant kitchens due to size or time restrictions. For example, extruded pasta made in the market is already on the menu at Local Mission Eatery; it’s something that the restaurant could never tackle before.
Eventually, Local Mission Market customers will also be able to shop online and pick up groceries at the pick-up window. Do note that there is no liquor license at the market, but when Local’s Cellar is up and running, there will be some synergy going on there.
Open daily, 9 a.m.-9 p.m.
Local Mission Market: 2670 Harrison Street. at 23rd Street, San Francisco. 
(415) 795-3355 or localmissionmarket.com