Total Wine Totally Expanding With Two New Bay Area Megastores

Break out the wine totes for totes wine

Maryland-based wine megastore Total Wine, which already operates in Mountain View and Fremont, is adding more Bay Area locations, people. A San Jose store (Almaden Ranch, 5140 Cherry Avenue Suite 30) opens on October 12th, and a Pleasanton location (Rose Pavilion, 4225 Rosewood Drive) opens on October 26th.

Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant signs on for Mission Bay development

The massive One Mission Bay development project, which is still seeking a “world-class flagship restaurant or retailer,” has its first retail tenants, and one is the popular Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant and Bar. They’ve signed a ten-year lease for a similar wine bar and retail outfit fronting Mission Creek, right across the way from the ballpark.

Absinthe reopens after refresh

A minor face-lift at Hayes Valley restaurant and bar Absinthe is complete and the business is back open. The changes are subtle, but there are a few noticeable shifts on the dessert menu courtesy of the Absinthe Group’s new executive pastry chef Michael Aguilar. New sweets include his Ile Flottante, a “floating island” of meringue on a sea of coffee creme anglaise with candied hazelnut.

Trick Dog trots out guest chef menus

Creative Mission cocktail bar Trick Dog (whose current, biannually-changing drinks menu resembles a children’s book and is actually bound like one) will host three guest chefs this month: Chris Kronner (of Kronnerburger), Joey Elenterio (formerly of Chez TJ and Cadence), and David Nayfeld and Angela Pinkerton (Eleven Madison Park alums and of forthcoming Italian restaurant Che Fico and luncheonette Theorita, included on Eater’s most anticipated list). Kronner is cooking his classic salty and rare burgers and more items on September 11, 12, 24, and 25 from from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. Nayfield and Pinkerton will also do a burger, as well as fried chicken sandwich, and some desserts like a Theorita apple pie, on the 17th and 18th. Elenterio will be cooking a TBA vegetarian menu on the 27th.

Mixt Cow Hollow opens September 13

Fast-casual salads and such chain Mixt is expanding its territory and offerings with a Cow Hollow location at 3130 Fillmore Street (between Greenwich and Filbert). That opens on September 13, and stays open later than Mixt’s downtown locations, which focus on lunch, selling dinner food plus beer and wine. The new Mixt will be giving away some swag and freebies at a neghborhood “block party” on the 16th.

New plant for plant-based burger

Impossible Foods, the company known for its meat-resembling-but-actually-vegetarian Impossible Burger, has opened its East Oakland factory, which was announced this spring. At capacity, the facility can produce 1 million pounds of its plant-based “meat,” flavored with the hemoglobin-like molecule heme for that bloody taste carnivores love. Here’s where the Impossible Burger is already available in the Bay Area.

Caleb Pershan

Royal Cuckoo Market can keep small beer and wine bar

A teeny little beer and wine bar set up inside a grocery and liquor store in the Mission can keep operating as is. The Royal Cuckoo Market was originally issued its beer and wine license in error, leaving it open to complaints from a leading member of neighborhood business group MEDA. The Planning Commission has now approved the business for real, showing a willingness to let local retailers experiment with new business models as they struggling to compete with online ordering and delivery.