The Ferry Plaza Farmers Market Launches Home Veggie Delivery

Welcome to p.m. Intel, your bite-sized roundup of Bay Area food and restaurant news. Tips are always welcome, drop them here.

• In very exciting veggie news, the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market is launching a delivery service, so fans of the produce destination can now shop online, instead of side-eyeing slow-walking tourists. During the pandemic, CUESA (Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture) launched a produce box for curbside pickup, which they wound down on May 1. But now, they’re partnering with the FruitGuys, and launching delivery throughout the Bay Area. There’s a flat fee for delivery, and the veggies drop every Saturday. Check out that fresh new website, just in time for the sweet start of cherry season.
• SF New Deal, the nonprofit that’s been paying restaurants to feed the community during the pandemic, just announced that they have another $1,000,000 that they’re planning to hand out to small businesses. That’s going out in the form of $2,500 micro grants, which will be distributed to 400 small businesses across the city, including restaurants, but also others — bookstores and nail salons are welcome to apply.
• Dreamforce is returning this fall, which is promising news for local restaurants, hotels, and the hospitality industry. The largest tech conference in SF was cancelled in 2020, costing surrounding businesses an estimated $176 million dollars. But it’s back for 2021, albeit in a different format: This year, Dreamforce is September 21 to 23, split between four different cities, SF, NY, London, and Paris, and it will be a combo of (fully vaccinated) in-person attendees and virtual attendees. Salesforce did not share numbers for how many people would actually be coming, but the SF Business Times points out that conventions are currently limited to 5,000 people, which is still dramatically less than 170,000 attendees in 2019. [SF Business Times]
• Noodle in a Haystack, the slurp-worthy ramen pop-up, has found a home. The SF Chronicle reports that the pop-up will be going permanent and opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant in the Inner Richmond this August. The Chron says that the Tans plan to expand the menu, but then again, it will just be the two of them in the kitchen, serving no more than 24 diners per night, at least to start. [SF Chronicle]
• And in big warehouse food news, free samples are back at Costco the first week of June. Expect more plexiglass divides and less elbowing; Costco says they plan to hand out samples to one customer at a time. [Mercury News]