A beer, a bagel, a box of produce

Restaurants and breweries are adding market boxes and grocery items to online menus

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Everyone is making it up as they go along, and early in April the Karben4 Brewing staff came up with the “drive-thru taproom” — a travelling pop-up market, often held in church parking lots, for selling Karben4 beer but also goods from other area vendors (cheese, milk, bread, meat) that customers can order from their cars and have placed in their trunks in a contactless delivery. 

“Adding more grocery items to the Karben4 pickup menu at the Madison taproom was just a by-product of the drive-thru events,” says lead bartender Joanna Merrill.

In addition to ordering, say, a growler of the barleywine Banana Thunderdome or other special beers on tap, customers can buy meats from Fischer Family Farm (a partner with Karben4 since it opened), milk and ice cream from Sassy Cow, and breads from Stalzy’s. More recently, Karben4 has added fresh produce from Vang Family Farm and Elderberry Hill Farm, including rhubarb, bok choy, radishes, spring garlic and spinach.

“Both the drive-thru taproom pop-ups and sales through the taproom started as a way to stay relevant and connected,” Merrill says. “We can safely offer the goods, we make a little money, and it’s obvious that [the expanded offerings] have been helpful to people.”

At Gotham Bagels, “It’s going pretty well,” owner Joe Gaglio says of his added grocery line, which consists mostly of products he uses personally, like olive oils and pasta. “I’m a frustrated fine dining chef and this is cool stuff I really like.”

When Gaglio was working on his web ordering site, intended for bagels and sandwiches and other deli items, on a whim he added some one-off Greek items he had on hand — tahini and a kalamata olive paste he was doubtful anyone would want — and to his surprise, they sold. He bought a case of his favorite Giuseppe Cocco pasta, posted it online, “and it sold out.”

Gaglio tried adding a few items that people seemed to want to be buying, like toilet paper, but he’s dropping that (“I think our toilet paper crisis seems to be over”) in favor of the curated grocery selection. The tahini and the olive paste are still on the menu, along with capers, giardiniera, arborio rice, polenta as well as fresh Vitruvian Farms greens and free range eggs. 

Gaglio is keen on reusing some of the packaging his imported goods come in, so you might find your delivery — which Gotham tries to keep within one hour — arriving in a nice box that once shipped balsamic vinegar.

Mother Fool's has been steadily adding items to its online grocery, focusing mostly on such kitchen staples as rice, beans, lentils, oat milk, syrup, honey, flour and sugar. Mother Fool's also has in-demand household supplies from bleach to toilet paper. Also, for your composting needs: worm casings.

Octopi Brewing is selling, in addition to its beers, a weekly produce box for $40. Octopi owner Isaac Showaki got the idea when the brewery had to lay off many of its taproom and kitchen employees in March: “I thought, let’s buy boxes of produce for the employees.” From there it was a matter of ordering more boxes from his produce buyer and putting them on the online menu. 

The produce boxes have recently contained fruits, veggies and nuts, but might also feature such items as fresh eggs and tortillas, Showaki says. Boxes have sold out each week in the month that Octopi has been selling them. “We don’t do it for the money,” says Showaki. “It’s more like a service. People come for the beer, and buy a box.”

Lakeside St. Coffee House has been hosting Blue Valley Gardens farm on Saturday mornings selling fresh produce. And the Willy Street Co-op is launching a monthly subscription service for local vegetable or organic fruit boxes beginning the first week of June. 

The Heights Kitchen is in its second week of offering $30 weekend market boxes filled with goods from its local suppliers, recently including Crossroads Community Farm, Los Abuelos Farm, Driftless Organics, Garden To Be and Mushroom Mike, with such veggies as spinach, green garlic and parsnips. 

Heights co-owner Evan Gruzis says they started the market box program to help the farms they work with get their product to the people, as the farms’ restaurant clients dried up. “We want to make it so people can cook,” says Gruzis of the selection of goods that come in the boxes. “It’s another outlet for consumers and it helps the producers.”

The Heights posts the boxes on its website midweek (scroll all the way down) along with its other takeout food and drink options. Pickups are at The Heights on Saturday and Sunday.

“For us it’s a win-win,” says Gruzis. “The space in the empty restaurant can be used as a staging area for assembling the boxes, customers appreciate the quality, and we can help the farmers, who are really stressing.”