Convenient CSA Pickup at a Caltrain Station
Leave it to Luke’s Local — the gourmet convenience store at a Caltrain station — to make getting farm-fresh produce on your commute even easier now.
The tiny store, which opened last year in a long-vacant ticket office at the Hillsdale station in San Mateo, just started offering a Community Supported Agriculture “Meal Box” that folks can pick up once a week at Luke’s Local. Imagine getting off the train after a long day at work, then picking up a box that contains not only fresh fruits and veggies, but a couple of ready-to-heat meals that you can load in your car to take home.
Luke Chappell, owner of the store, is offering this new service in a joint effort with Farmshares, a Community Supported Agriculture program of local farms in the Capay Valley. When you subscribe to the service, you pick up your box every Wednesday night at the train station.
Recently, I had a chance to try a sample box, which came loaded with leeks, asparagus, oranges and carrots. Each box also includes a selection of two to four Luke’s Local prepared entrees of your choice. Each week, a local guest chef creates the entrees, too, ensuring a variety of eats. My box included a wonderful, slab of miso sesame arctic char, alongside an avocado maki roll and cooked, cold sesame spinach salad. Additionally, there was a tasty, tomato-y chicken sloppy joe roll with a small Caesar salad and sweet potato fries, which had turned limp from the refrigeration, but still had good flavor. Both those dishes were made by Roger Feeley of Soul Cocina.
Other recent offerings have included Southern pork pot pie by Blair Warsham of graffEats and Kar Bi short rib with brown rice, miso eggplant and pickles by Jordan Grosser of Stag Dining Group.
The standard veggie box (produce with two vegetarian dishes of your choice and a burrito) is $25. A regular box (produce with two meals and a burrito) is $32. A large box (produce plus four entrees and two burritos) is $54. You can add extra items, too, including a half-pound bag of Blue Bottle Coffee beans ($8) or a chorizo breakfast burrito ($4.49).
Boxes must be ordered ahead of time at the shop or by email with a credit card. As an incentive, all new subscribers receive a 50 percent discount on their first order, too.
For more information about Luke’s Local, read my companion post on DealPop.
More Farm-Fresh Produce Options: The FruitGuys
Some great goodies in these boxes!
How unique that it comes with prepared foods. I’ve never seen that in a CSA box. I debated about whether or not to sign up this year and decided I’d just buy my fruits and veggies again to continue getting to know the farms better (since I’ve only lived here a year), but probably next year I will sign up.
They even have burrito in the box. I always thought the box is just fresh (raw) produce.
Sounds yummy! I’m sorry I moved away before he went into business. I’m surprised that Caltrain hasn’t done this )or something) with more old ticket offices, since they seem to be hurting for money.
I don’t think anyone does a box like this near me. Looks like a great idea. It sure was great to finally meet you in person at the Suvir Saram interview last Friday night. We really enjoyed it and met a nice couple who sent us ideas for good Indian restaurants we hadn’t tried.
That’s a great being able to pick it up from a train station! There’s a nice selection too 🙂
The idea of a “meal box” really is brilliant…wish I could find that in my area! 🙂
This is brilliant! The food sounds great and I love that you get to select your dish or meal. Genius!
Judy: So wonderful to meet you in person, too. Thanks for coming out for my conversation with Suvir Saran. And glad you got some tips for great new places to eat, too!