Polk Street Produce

OH NO! Harry & Jong closed their business! SO SAD! Huge loss for the neighborhood, as Merv M. noted :-(Seeing more and more shops closing on Polk Street — some I know are because of leases… not sure why Polk Street Produce closed… I feel bad that I haven’t come in for over a week to see what was up… I did notice Harry looking more & more sad lately. I was wondering if this was coming. *sigh*

I was very upset to see the CLOSED for business sign ion the gated storefront when I went to buy my weekly fruits and veggies on 6÷10÷2015. I realized thinking back I’d been shopping here for five years I think? I am very sad to see the loss of a great local business in this neighborhood. I hope that Harry and his wife are able to start up another business somewhere more hospitable.

CLOSED???
Handwritten sign on door today: Dear Customers, Polk Street Produce is now closed. Thank you. Harry and Jon
A big loss for the neighborhood. :(

Once again I have been walking around checking out who gives us the best deals, the freshest and most physically and mentally healthy food around where I live. I am very blessed because Harry and Jon at Polk St. Produce are right across the street. By far and away this Polk St. store is the totally honest, all the food fairly priced for the truth of what you actually are getting and the taste without comparison.
I wrote this because I wish the best for all my neighbors just like Harry, Jon, and their daughter Cynthia wish in all the products they sell. They beat out Walgreen’s, Golden Veggies and any market near Polk and Sutter.

This place is a neighborhood gem. Harry the proprieter, especially, is great. Get him talking about which vegetables/​fruits are worth going organic — and which aren’t. And he knows so much about juicing!

WOW! Just spent 15 minutes talking to the owner while he rang out my produce (I was the only one in the store) and learned SO MUCH about how to look for the best quality products. This guy is a serious expert and carries only the highest quality in-​season products. Love this place!

Best product market — in terms of quality, price and customer service — that I know of in San Francisco.
Harry, the owner, is extremely knowledgable and passionate about his profession and it shows: bright big flavorful tomatoes year round… a great selection of locally grown and California grown produce as well as most organic options… the tightest onions in town for half the price of whole foods… never any limp or old produce because they spend a ton of time making sure only the freshest are sold.
Go to this market at save money on produce and get best bang for your buck… go and ask Harry questions about fruits and veggies and how the ones he sources are better because they’re more fresh and sustainably raised… support small business owners that create community, not big chains that sell un-​ripe, gassed (ahem Trader Joes) stuff. Rock N Roll Polk Street Produce!

PSP is one reason I completely adore Polk street. I frequent this produce shop at least once a week and have never regretted it. No surprise brown avocados, no bland apples, no mushy grapes. This place makes my heart and immune system very happy.
Also, the staff here is great, they know what they are talking about (I had no idea there were so many varieties of yams). I don’t have many people in my inner-​circle that will talk 10+ minutes with me about spaghetti squash, but my PSP friends will :) They are very knowledgable on all things produce and super friendly!
Note: this is a cash only establishment.

This place has really great produce that’s always the freshest from the season. I love getting my ingredients here for guacamole, my favorite tofu salad (got some fresh cilantro and mushrooms today), and the fruit selection is great (today I got some yummy grapes and bananas). I would give this place 5 stars, but the owner guy is not the friendliest — maybe I should ask him more questions because he seems to be very knowledgeable about his products. He just needs to greet his customers, smile a bit more and drop the attitude a couple notches, please — thank you.

Just went here tonight and was pretty impressed with the selection and prices. It was smaller than I expected, and the guy in front of me seemed to have gotten the last of the green grapes, but overall they had a great variety of produce, everything looked fresh or perfectly ripe, and they had plenty of other health-​type stuff too (I picked up some flax seed, which they had whole or ground). I’ll be back!

Love this place! It has, by far, the best value and quality of produce in the area. Trader Joe’s produce is over-​packaged and often mediocre, Whole Foods is soooo expensive, and the market on CA and Polk (forget it’s name, the basement level one) frequently has ROTTEN food. Even though I get a lot of food from Trader Joe’s, I make a special point of coming here for my produce, and the extra trip is completely worth it.
Harry, the owner, knows his stuff and will tell you what’s good. I was getting into juicing and he made some great recommendations about juice recipes. He introduced me to chia seed before it became the latest thing. He knows his stuff! And I love the neighborhood feel this place has.

This place is tiny, never has what I am looking for and the guy in there is very unfriendly. Nothing worse than terrible customer service.

Surpassed by new produce store beneath Crustacean.

Well since Cala foods went out of business, this has been my go-​to walking food store. They pretty much have everything you need. Fresh meat, vegetables, lots of ethnic specialties.
The thing I like most here is that it is clean, they have a good selection and they don’t absolutely rape you on prices. I have a little market by my house that is vaguely a full grocery store, but they charge you $ 9.95 for a pack of bacon, and $ 4.50 a pound for bell peppers.
This is a good spot for groceries.

If this store had chubby cheeks, I’d gladly be the grandma that squeezes them for way too long. It’s an adorable little neighborhood produce store that sells organic, fresh, and relatively cheap produce.
I want to grab a cucumber and some feta cheese to make a Greek salad, sure!
I want to stock my fruit bowl with some yellow apples and pears, not a problem!
I want to buy some extra virgin olive oil to garnish my salad, absolutely!
Knocked off a star because their selection is limited and some items are more expensive than the store two blocks away (Big Apple). But if it weren’t so small, I wouldn’t squeeze its metaphorical cheeks now would I?

This is a nice neighborhood produce shop. The prices are competitive and the owner takes pride in his shop.
There can be limited selections at times, but I appreciate that the owner does not overbuy his merchandise. He buys what he can sell. He takes pride in his products as well. If you talk to him, he is happy to tell you about his products or how to cook or use an unusual item. I hear he’ll even cut open a coconut for you! That’s pretty cool! He is full of advice and knowledge. You have to talk to him first though. We are regulars, and he still never greets us.
The store has good prices on produce. The prices are cheaper than Safeway’s base price, but if Safeway has a sale, it’s hard to beat those prices! He offers traditional and organic produce as well.
I wouldn’t buy any of the non-​produce items though; they’re pricey unfortunately!

I am fortunate enough to live a block away from this shop.
The owner is SUPER nice and very helpful…
During the summer this is one of my favorite shops. they have a nice selection of fruits.
they have other items too… granola, tofu, and some drinks…
This is the type of business that i love to shop at… i know that spending my money here is going to a good hard working family rather some random corporation…
i hope you soon fall in love too!

The two reasons that Polk Street Produce is awesome:
–Great quality produce at Chinatown prices
–The customer service is awesome. You can tell that the proprietor really values his business and his customers. He’ll talk to you about the quality of a certain item, if you should wait a week or two before buying a certain item and even told me how to open a young coconut. (Reference You Tube).
After many years of walking buy and never stopping in, I’m glad that PSP is now on the normal grocery rotation.
Awesome neighborhood small business.

I should have reviewed this place long ago. It is simply awesome! The produce is of an incredible variety and quality for such a small store. And I don’t know how the owner manages to keep the prices so reasonable because I often times find things of poorer quality at the farmer’s market that are WAY more expensive.
The best thing is that you can get certain types of produce and other food products that are hard to find without traveling to a local chain grocery store like Whole Foods. For instance, I’ve gotten prickly pear cactus here and a number of other fruits and vegetables that otherwise would have been hard to find.
What’s more, the owner really takes his time to make sure you understand how to eat and prepare things that may be unfamiliar to you. He went over how to prepare the two different kinds of persimmons with me, which was extremely helpful and also made me less hesitant to purchase the foods in the first place.
There’s also been a number of times where he will give me a free sample of a fruit or vegetable that seems interesting. I think I had some variety of apricots that were so tasty. And he tells you about the specials/​deals he has going on too.
The other thing that’s great about this spot is that you can get a young coconut for cheap and they’ll lop off the top for you and give you a straw so you can drink the juice on your way home. The owner got me hooked on these when I went to purchase a canned coconut juice and suggested getting a fresh coconut that doesn’t go through filtering and processing to put it in a can for later consumption.
This place has definitely gotten me eating much more fresh food. And it really is such a cheerful, friendly, peaceful environment to pick out your food for the week. Support local!

My inner monologue on the walk home: «I’m fricken huuuuungry. Starving even maybe. Yea, I bet this is officially starving level. Dinner is gonna take me like an hour to cook and I’m not even home yet. Fuuuuuck. Fuuuuuuuck.»
I’m thinking a snack is in order and right then I happen across this store. I zero in on mangoes, perfect snack. I check them out but shit, they’re all hard as rocks.
Me: «Hello, do you have any more mangoes, maybe in back? Softer ones? These out here are all unripe, they’re still really hard and…»
Him: «NO.»
Me: «OK thanks. Oh wait, here’s another box.»
Him: «Those are all soft too.»
Me: «Oh good, I was looking for softer ones. The other ones were hard.»
Him: «I know.»
Me: «…»
Him: «They’re all soft.»
Me: «But I just told you the other box was full of hard ones and you said ‘I know’.»
Him: «Yes.»
Me: «…»
Me: «So umm yea, well this is good, I found what I needed. One ripe mango…»
Him: «They were hard.»
Me: «…»
What? We were glaring out of the corners of our eyes, like we didn’t trust each other. I still don’t know what happened with that conversation.
I want to give this place 5 stars. The location is perfect, the organic selection huge, and the prices fair. But that guy… I’m fairly certain we’re arch enemies like in superhero movies and we just don’t know it yet.