September 11th, 2018 – After a long eight-month wait, Earthbound Farm is finally reopening its Carmel Valley certified organic market and café with a reimagined floor plan, expanded and enhanced coffee service, prepared food and produce offerings, and a redoubled commitment to providing the highest quality experience it can for its devoted customers.
“I’m really excited to welcome people back,” says general manager Jonathan Bagley, who after a single social media posting announcing a soft re-opening of the Farm Stand on Saturday morning saw enthusiastic crowds arrive all weekend. “It’s really an important part of what makes Earthbound Earthbound.”
The Farm Stand had closed in early January for a critical reconstruction of its foundation that was necessary for the safety of its staff and guests. But while it was closed, Earthbound took advantage of the opportunity to also reconfigure and renovate the the entire space—and to reconsider everything it offers.
“Every item in (the Farm Stand) has been rethought, everything that we’re doing has a lot of intentionality to it,” Bagley says. “We want to make sure that anything that we add to the Farm Stand is the best it can be.”
For example, the Farm Stand has installed a high-tech new Mavam espresso machine, which was handmade in Seattle and, Bagley explains, offers exceptional temperature control for the different elements that go into making espresso drinks. Earthbound has also lined up L.A. Roast to produce private label beans for just for the Farm Stand, and it has introduced a pourover program.
The location of the coffee station itself was also reconsidered; it is now situated on a wraparound counter where prepared foods and smoothies will also be served near the left front entrance of the Farm Stand—a move that is part of a larger redesign of the interior to highlight the three types of offerings that Earthbound identified as most important to its guests.
Another of the key offerings, organic produce from Earthbound and other local growers, is now situated near the right front entrance of the building, and the salad bar, which Bagley says is the Farm Stand’s No. 1 draw, is now visible from the door at the center of the back wall of room and will soon be expanded in size. All are bathed in sun coming in from skylights above.
Sometime in October, the Farm Stand also plans to offer a full bistro menu, including breakfast and lunch. And eventually, a new room at the back right of the building will feature a couple of wooden slab communal tables, allowing diners to stay warm and dry when the fog rolls in around the café tables and picnic tables that dot the Farm Stand’s beautiful grounds. And for warmer days, soft-serve ice cream will be available through a window on the south side of the building.
As it completes the renovations and ramps back up its product lines and services over the the next couple of weeks, the Farm Stand will be open 7–6 Wednesday to Saturday and 9–5 on Sundays. Soon, it will again be open on Mondays and Tuesdays 7–6, and a grand opening is planned for later this month. (The exact date is yet to be finalized; watch Earthbound’s and Edible Monterey Bay’s social media for more.)
Meantime, the Farm Stand’s popular annual pumpkin patch arranged by Farm Stand events and farm manager Janna Jo Williams is already taking shape with artfully arranged heaps of whimsical pumpkins grown onsite, and the Farm Stand’s usual active fall event calendar is sure to follow.
The large scope and long timeline of the renovation illustrate the commitment Earthbound and its corporate parent, Danone, have to the 25-year-old Farm Stand, situated near where Earthbound founders Myra and Drew Goodman started Earthbound itself in 1984.
“Earthbound the company is going through a bit of a rebirth and looking very closely at its roots and the Farm Stand is benefitting from that,” Bagley says.
And for that, the many customers who have missed it are sure to be grateful.
About the author
SARAH WOOD—founding editor and publisher of Edible Monterey Bay—has had a life-long passion for food, cooking, people and our planet.
She planted her first organic garden and cared for her first chicken when she was in elementary school in a farming region of Upstate New York.
Wood spent the early part of her career based in Ottawa, Canada, working in international development and international education. After considering culinary school, she opted to pursue her loves for writing, learning about the world and helping make it a better place by obtaining a fellowship and an MA in Journalism from New York University.
While working for a daily newspaper in New Jersey, she wrote stories that helped farmers fend off development and won a state-wide public service award from the New Jersey Press Association for an investigative series of articles about a slumlord who had hoodwinked ratings agencies and investment banks into propping him up with some early commercial mortgage securitizations. The series led Wood to spend several years in financial journalism, most recently, as editor-in-chief of the leading magazine covering the U.S. hedge-fund industry.
Wood now lives with her family in Washington, DC, where she is a freelance writer and manages communications for Samaritan Ministry, an antipoverty and antiracist nonprofit that provides struggling Greater Washington residents with highly personalized and compassionate life counseling and coaching.
