New homeowners face a steep learning curve. You need to figure out all the tricks to living in a new house, plus the whole meeting-your-neighbors thing. And on top of that, you have to get familiar with the neighborhood. You’ll have to find the best parking spots, the places to avoid after 10 p.m., the favored gas stations and grocery stores.
If you move to Fremont, though, the last one is easy. Your favored grocery store will be Marketime. Trust us. You can stop searching.
Marketime is like the Fremont commons. Everyone ends up going there, sooner or later, and once you try it out, you’ll realize how convenient it is, and you’ll keep coming back. You’ll spot Joe and Suzy from up the street the next time you visit, and you’ll see your hairdresser there, too. Soon, it’ll be the place to pick up an obscure vegetable or a last-minute ingredient.
European Market
Marketime isn’t a substitute for Safeway, Fred Meyer, etc. You won’t find jumbo-sized items there, and you won’t see an entire row of sugary breakfast cereal. It’s a corner store, not a supermarket—but not one of those rinky-dink corner stores that offers greasy corn dogs and a total of five overripe bananas, either. Marketime feels European. It packs a huge variety of high-quality food into a small venue.
Variety
Marketime also feels like Mary’s Poppins’ purse. The store contains approximately double what you’d expect it to. You can find your typical grocery items here, and you can also find things like almond paste, lavender ice cream, brown rice flour, and butternut squash ravioli. Its meat and produce is fresh, too. We told you—it’s not your typical corner store. There’s also beer and wine, with an emphasis on the wine (and we’re not talking Barefoot). If you suddenly need dessert wine, you can head down to Marketime.
Price
Unless your ancestors struck gold and invested in Apple, you won’t do full-size grocery runs at Marketime. But if a recipe throws a curveball, or if friends show up unexpectedly for lunch, Marketime is quick and easy, and it’s close enough to save you some gas money.
Convenience
This is the real reason why people keep coming back. If you live in Fremont, it’s within walking distance. You can get an ingredient in a five-minute trip. It’s also convenient as far as portion-size goes. You only need half a pie? Just a few cloves of garlic instead of a whole bulb? Marketime’s got your back. And once you get used to that convenience, well… you’ll be like everyone else in Fremont—a regular Marketime customer.
Local
We’re particularly fond of Marketime because it’s local. It’s a family-owned business, started by Ken Giles in 1969. Giles grew up in the Greenwood/Phinney neighborhood in the ‘30s and ‘40s, and the store has stayed in his family. Marketime also donates to the community. When we call it the Fremont grocery store, it goes two ways—Marketime is just as loyal to Fremont as Fremont is loyal to Marketime.
Adjusting to a new house is hard. It’s enjoyable and rewarding, certainly, but also hard. We want to make that process as easy as possible. Whether it’s by recommending places like Marketime, helping you find a washer and dryer, or telling you about the closest dog park, we can help. We want to help.
