For all you skeptics wondering how a grocer can survive downtown, Nora LaBrocca wants you to know she has much more in store.
Preparations are under way to install a commercially certified kitchen in the back of Downtown Market Co., at Medford’s 231 E. Main St. By August, LaBrocca plans to open a lunch counter, give cooking classes and host wine- and beer-tastings. It’s all part of a larger plan for assembling her Downtown Dinners, launched two years ago, and maintaining a storefront for distributing them.
I suspected the tricks LaBrocca had up her sleeve after interviewing her for a 2008 story and eagerly monitored the growing inventory at the store. While the shelves seemed almost bare when Downtown Market quietly opened May 21, LaBrocca’s plan all along has been to stock what customers want. A chalkboard near the refrigerator cases serves as suggestion box and this week lists farro, bison meat, chorizo and skim-rich milk.
LaBrocca really does take suggestions seriously and subsequently added Greek yogurt, fresh mozzarella and other grocery items penned to the board. Last week saw the addition of bulk foods attractively displayed in glass jars behind the counter, which LaBrocca calls the “dispensary” because staff weigh and package it. The store, she says is less than half “specialty” goods, the rest pantry staples.
“It’s all the things I love to cook with that I have a hard time finding,” she says.
One of those is pizza dough, which thrilled me a few weeks back when I spied it while browsing. Instead of braving Highway 62 traffic after work on Friday to pick up dough at Medford’s most beloved pizzeria, I strolled over to Downtown Market Co. and paid a mere $2.30 for a plastic-packaged dough ball big enough to make a medium-sized pie for two people.
Although the dough comes to LaBrocca frozen from a California company (she puts it in the refrigerator case as needed), the quality couldn’t have been better. The dough puffed up beautifully on the baking stone in my 450-degree oven and browned to the perfect crispy but tender consistency. In case the market is ever out of dough, LaBrocca also stocks rapid-rise yeast, which I used a month or so ago to make my first homemade pizza crust based on an Associated Press recipe for focaccia.
That’s if you have 30 minutes to spare before the pizza can even start baking. On a Friday night at home with my husband, I want to plan dinner around an oven that’s preheated by the time I get home with ready-to-roll dough.
So give me Downtown Market Co., which stays open until 6 p.m. on weekdays, later if it’s the Third Friday Downtown Throwdown, which LaBrocca originated last year and this blog previously covered. And if you don’t have cream for the next morning’s coffee or peanut butter for the kids’ lunches, Downtown Market’s got that covered, too.
