One day last August I was standing in line at my favorite local sandwich shop, Hazel’s Kitchen, chatting about boats with a guy I’d seen around the Potrero neighborhood.
Meanwhile, the owner, Leslie Goldberg, overheard our conversation while she prepped my sandwich. She asked if I was a sailor and I confirmed that yes, before wrestling deadlines at the Guardian, I hauled lines as a deckhand. I told her I missed sea life and was thinking about getting in on some local yacht club action. "If you know any hot single sailors, send them my way," I joked.
"Actually, I do," she said, smiling wryly.
This is how I met Brian and learned that a handful of happy couples in the neighborhood can testify to Goldberg’s sixth sense for matchmaking.
But the talent most patrons see is sandwich-making. Wholesome, grab-and-go comfort food is the theme of Hazel’s lunch and catering menus. Homey standards like mac and cheese and minestrone soup mingle with sandwiches of turkey and cranberries or roast beef with horseradish.
Goldberg, a Pennsylvania native, opened the sandwich shop 16 years ago with a $10,000 seed grant from another Potrero local she calls her guardian angel. The standing-room only shop serves fresh salads, soups, and sandwiches with ingredients sourced from family-owned local distributors. Produce hails from Marin Organics and the to-go containers are compostable, a move that cut her garbage bill in half.
The shop’s not named after a distant relative, but the wife of Farley, the namesake of the café next door. To Goldberg, a single mother who lived and raised her 12-year-old twins, Emma and Jake, in the apartment upstairs, being a part of the neighborhood is what it’s all about. "Every merchant, every neighbor, helped take care of my kids with me."
When asked about the challenges of being a small business in San Francisco, she immediately cites big-business competition. "When Whole Foods came it was the first time I saw such a drastic change in business," she said. She checked out the grocery chain’s new Potrero location shortly after it opened and was blown away. "Whatever you wanted, they had and it was done beautifully. No one can compete with that."
So how does Hazel’s keep up? Goldberg says the magic ingredient is service. "That’s what I do. It’s my pleasure. When people walk into Hazel’s I want them to smile and feel good."
Perhaps that’s why a couple of months after the Whole Foods grand opening she saw her business go back to normal. "What a small business really has is service and community. Those are two things Whole Foods can’t give people."
I bet it’s hard to order up hot, single sailors there too. (Amanda Witherell)
HAZEL’S KITCHEN
1319 18th St., SF
(415) 647-7941