September 05th, 2024

Don't know if you ever heard of this place before.  We had not.   But once we did learn of it, naturally we had to check it out.  Field Trip!!!!!

My post earlier this week listed all of the superfun things we did over the long weekend. One of those things was our visit to this particular place.  It's down in Naples Florida which is roughly a 90 minute drive.  No biggie.  On a nice day with relatively minimal traffic it was an easy drive (which is silly of me to say because I wasn't the one doing the driving, but still....)

Seed to Table is a grocery store.  A grocery store worth driving a total (round trip) of 3 hours to check out?  Yes.  Yes and yes and yes!  It was the most interesting and unusual grocery store I have ever been to.  Why, you ask?  Well, let me count the ways.

First of all, it was packed.  We were lucky in our timing as we ever so slowly crept down an aisle just as someone was pulling out.  Naturally we zipped right into that spot.  Great start.  Out in front of the store is a deep covered porch type area filled to overflowing with plants and flowers - all of sale of course.  They were gorgeous and healthy and of tremendous variety, easily a step or two above the average grocery store flower section I would say.

Then we stepped through the doors into a wall of sound.  I mean...holy cats...why on earth is the music so loud? We fairly shouted at each other.  Then we responded by shrugging back at one another and I thought to myself, at least it's good music.  Meaning, music of our general era.  Music we could dance to, music we knew all the lyrics too. Cool.  Then Tim realized why it was so loud.  It was a live band playing upstairs.  Upstairs?  Yup this grocery store has two floors.

hWe knew right away, this place was gonna be a different sort of experience.  And that was highlighted as we randomly chose to turn to our right and enterred the bakery zone.  OH My Gosh. It was almost endless. Racks and tables and shelves at every turn filled to over flowing with beautiful, tempting, luscious calorie filled goodies.  And that's before we ever got to the specialty case which had cake after pie after cobbler after tart after cupcake after brownie in flavours that had us nearly drooling. And that was before we even got to the cookie section.  Holy Cats!

Eventually we came out into the produce department.  Which I would say is more like your average produce department just there was a lot MORE of it in both amount and variety than most stores.  And it was stacked with either military precision or creative artistry. Not merely loaded onto a display willynilly.  

,Produce sort of seguied into the butcher department and that nearly took Tim's breathe away.  He has always been a big time carnivore so obviously the butcher department sort of wowed him.  All of the meats appeared to be of excellent quality, again I was impressed with the wide variety of cuts and meats.  There were, for example, 7 different kinds of bacon to choose from in the display case.  It's not just "one pound of bacon please"  but what sort?  I would never be able to choose.  

Next up was cheese.  So much cheese.  Again the possibilities just boggled my mind.  There were different cheeses at every turn, every display, every refrigerated case and every rack.  I am not a cheese person, being lactose intolerant has impacted my ability to had an affection of cheese, but I was mightily tempted there.  Still, how would I or anyone ever choose??

The various grocery sections just went on and on in similar and very impressive fashion which had us goggling and open mouthed and pointing like typical tourists as we stage whispered to each other to "look, look" while we very slowly continued our wander.

And that's when we noticed, restaurants.  Here and there, tucked throughout the grocery store were tiny little restaurants.  Each with a particular focus. What are you in the mood for?  Sushi?  They had it.  Pizza ?  You betcha.  Burgers?  Or course.  Taco's?  Absolutely, Pasta?  Why not! : 

Or perhaps by this point in the shopping excursion, you are just  thirsty.  There was a place for coffee and tea, another for smoothies, beer and wine  (because who doens't need a little pickmeup & mellowmeout while shopping) and of course fountain drinks of a sort:

And if this wasn't enough, there were quirky funny things here and there and an entire political merch section if you were interested in that sort of thing.

Just when I thought we had to have run out of departments we found the store made ready to cook, eat or reheat foods.  Once again, quality and variety were impressive.  The ready made soups alone were an entire huge section!  Whoa!  There was even an indication of a new department, which is "coming soon" called the Greenhouse.  Plants, flowers and herbs maybe?  But in it's own whole literal Green house section.  Mercy!

When we finally  made our way to the door (purchases in hand - naturally we had to try a few treats from the bakery department), I noticed a calendar of Events and Entertainment by the exit.  Events?  Entertainment?  Yes, it's a regular thing at Seed to Table.  I couldn't help myself, I laughed right out loud.

On our drive back home, I found myself looking up Seed to Table and learning about the Oakes Family who own and run the joint.  They literally do own every single step of the process from planting the crops to maintaining, harvesting, packaging, processing, shipping AND obviously the store itself.  It's a hardscrabble, rags to riches, very impressive success story that makes you root for the family as you read.  Their hope is to eventually make the entirety completely employee owned.  Awesome.  How can you not love that?

We spent way more time than anyone would ordinarily expect at a grocery store.  But then, this was no ordinary grocery store was it?  I wish I had taken more photos for you but I was too busy being agog.   If you ever happen to be in Naples Florida and have a non-beach day or part of a day when you are at loose ends, I strongly recommend checking this place out.   You really cannot truly believe it until you see it. I've done a very poor job of describing how wow it was.

Anyway, as field trips go, this one was pretty good. AND the bakery treats we bought?  They were Excellent!