••• “Whatever they’re doing to Whole Foods Santa Barbara is a disaster,” tweeted Marianne to me. “Clearly reducing offerings and gee I don’t get how you pick out your cheese when it’s 6’ off the floor.” The new cheese section, in the corner where bread used to be, is indeed user-unfriendly—I’m tall, so I could see everything, but good luck to the rest of you—and a staffer said that prepared foods is probably expanding into the old cheese area. A coffee/juice bar is now to the left of the entrance, taking over some of the bath-and-body space, and I honestly can’t remember if the store had a café before—my memory is shot and/or the supermarkets are all just blurring together at this point.
••• Shalhoob’s confirmed that it’s opening in the old Woody’s BBQ space near the Ralph’s on Hollister Avenue.
••• Centennial Beer Hall in Old Town Goleta sells kegs of beer: “We’ve got access to a gigantic selection of the best breweries across CA, the US, and the world!”
••• The Other Room, the wine-and-beer bar in Los Olivos from the Bell’s and Back Room folks, has slowly, softly, occasionally been opening; yesterday, it was selling beer for takeaway and to enjoy on the terrace.
••• The Black Sheep cut its price from $325,000 to $250,000.
••• From a Noozhawk profile of Matty’s Hot Chicken at the Santa Barbara Public Market: “The chicken is sourced from Rocky Canyon Farms in Atascadero, and the chilis come from Ormonde Farms in Arroyo Grande. The produce is used from the local Roots Farms and Givens Farms. The bacon comes from Compart Farms, and it’s cured and smoked by Priedite Barbecue.”
••• Whiskey ‘N Rye barbecue in Solvang is said to be opening this month.
••• The Ballard Inn‘s restaurant is back open for dinner with a new (unnamed) chef and a new menu. UPDATE: Christine discovered that the new chef is Brendan Collins, most recently of Park 1039 in San Luis Obispo.
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File this under you owe me one✔️
The Ballard Inn has hired a male ??? and his name is Brendan Collins – on Instagram as @theotherbcollins
The Inn itself is looking fantastic from the outside!
Ok, everyone. The Great Cheese Panic of 2022 is a tad outsized. I’m 5’ and regularly need to ask for help getting things off higher shelves. I’ve tested it and can affirm the new cheese display at Whole Foods is perfectly accessible to 99.5% of adults. Crisis averted! Looks a lot nicer, too.
I have often wondered why that cheese section was so large and needed two employees working it. I like cheese but I went to that area maybe 10% of my shopping trips to WF. Maybe more like 5%. I think the new area matches my own cheese-shopping needs, so it would seem to probably match the rest of their shoppers as well. Ditto on being short (5’3″) and just figuring it out all these years. ;-) High (low?) five, BW!
People not like me can always go to Bristol Farms and Gelson’s for the “full cheese shopping experience.”
I was told the WF remodel will not be finished until September and the current layout does not reflect where or how the actual food areas will look. These current changes are temporary