February 19,2002
Dedicated to the Memory of Frank Marchi

It's 3:30 AM and the alarm is nagging me to get up. I hit the snooze button and sleep for another 10 minutes. The loud annoying ring starts again. "ohhhhh"  I say to myself it seems like it just rang 2 seconds ago. I get up, stumble across theroom and hit the thing I turn on the coffee pot and get in the shower. A half-hour later with my commuter mug in my hand and a crumpled up list in my pocket I walk out the door thinking to myself 'Why do they  still do this so early in the morning?' In this day and age of pre-cooling and refrigerated trucks, there is no reason left in the world to do this in the middle of the night!

 At least it's summer and the weather is reasonable. I continue to convince myself  that this is a great way to make a living as I get into my pickup truck and drive to the store. There I get into a big GMC one ton truck and drive to the Produce Wholesale Market. The only place that I know of that is bustling  like downtown at 3:00 in the morning.

 There I start my daily haggle with all of the produce wholesalers.  I walk the market, make my purchases. Let's see… what's the first thing on my list?  Potatoes. Okay, I'll go see Beni and buy some Yukon Gold, red potatoes and some russets.

When I get there I see an array of onions, potatoes, every variety of apple available this time of the year, grapes, berries, stone fruit and so on & so forth. I end up buying more than just  spuds from Beni. I travel to a couple of other "Produce Houses" and buy lettuce and greens, carrots & beans.

Now it's time for specialty items. I walk to the corner where there is  a world of specialty produce Mini baby squashes some with the blossoms still attached, edible flowers of all sorts, fiddlehead ferns, wild strawberries, Buddha hand lemons, lemon grass and garlic leeks, sensation melons. This corner is packed with more than enough colorful fresh  fruits and vegetables that would  impress a painters canvas several times over.  I make my final purchases and the porters bring it all to the truck.  I check it to make sure it's exactly what I bought. After the last load is placed on the truck and the sun makes its first hint of day I close it down and head back to the store to set it up for the days business.

I arrive at the store a little after 6:00 AM. Not bad timing for such a heavy purchase day. As I set up the deliveries begin, The different bakeries bring in their goods, the milkman and the egg delivery. The natural grocery vendors, and the cheese company. Employees begin their work schedules. They start by unloading the truck and setting up the store.

All day the customers come in and most are amazed by the variety. Almost every one leaves having tried something they have never had before or at least a little more knowledgeable in their culinary curve.

Here comes Mrs. Delinsky with her daughter Carlotta who is visiting with her children from Boston. The Buddha Hand lemons catch their eyes. "What in the world is this?' they both ask. I let  them know that it is a Buddha Hand Lemon. It's called this because of it's long tentacles on the blossom end which resemble fingers on a hand. A mutation that occurred in the citrus sometime in the 4th century in China. Native to North east India where it was used as medicine.

It is used today mainly for candied peel. Probably a little more information than they care to know, but hey, they asked!

Throughout the day chefs, prep cooks, homemakers, & just about anyone who loves to cook, eat good fruit & veggies and want to maintain health are in & out of the store. 

I love this business. I love to help people with their produce needs and menu decisions. I love buying and haggling, I love to have the best top quality produce in town and enjoy the reputation!
My calling in the produce business is to promote the enjoyment of fresh produce first, nutrition second.

This  the life of  "Dan the Produce Man." But these days I do a lot of my buying over the phone from brokers. My produce arrives on big semi's by the pallet and I walk all three Bay Area produce markets weekly. I still do personal face to face sales and am enjoying it tremendously.

I wrote the above paragraphs because it is pretty much the same for any retail  produce specialty store owner or small chain buyer. The day begins early and ends late.  For some that are fortunate enough the day ends early…sometimes.

We all think we're nuts at the same time we have some strange passion for the business. Produce gets in your blood and once it's there it's hard to shake it.

I think about the many positions that I've held in the produce business, I think about being the produce manager for the biggest dotcom failure in history Webvan. I think about inspecting all of the gigantic loads of produce all day long on the dock at SYSCO foodservices,  the growth of Costco Wholesale and working as a produce manger at Fry's Food Stores in the Bay Area. But today all I think about is when I started out in the produce business.

One fine day in the spring of 1976 after receiving a tip from a friend, I walked to the corner of Central and Oak Streets and saw an old building that was being converted into a produce stand. A big partially finished sign on the front read PRODUCE UNLIMITED. I walked in and met the owner. "Hi I'm Bill, you wanna job huh? go unload that truck." I started to work, and man did I work! The  truck was a forty-foot trailer filled from front to back with watermelons lying on a bed of straw about chest high. Not in bins, not in boxes, but loose on the floor stacked up!

There were a few other guys there. The system they had was not bad for a bunch of old bubbers, a guy at the melons, a guy at the side door of the trailer, a guy outside the trailer door, and a guy next to the building where the melons would be stacked up the same way that they were in the truck. It was the big melon toss from man to man until the entire trailer was unloaded. All this work and Bill was selling the melons for only 4 cents per pound.

The place was packed on opening day and  people were fighting over spots in the parking lot. They were buying melons and peaches and squash and every other fruit & vegetable that was available. I remember seeing this and thinking to myself that this was one of the most incredible sights I had ever seen!

We would show up in the morning to open the store and folks were there waiting for us. We would hardly be set up and they were flocking to the place like early birds at a garage sale. I overheard Bill and his wife saying "we expected to do business, but we did not expect this." The people were happy. They were getting fresh fruits and vegetables and getting a good deal too. There was no there place like it in town. Old folks were exclaiming "I haven't had these in years!" holding up different produce items. I loved it and I fell in love with it.

A year later Bill sold the store. The building sat empty for a few months and I thought that my career in the produce business was over. I was 16 now and able to legally get a job so I started looking. One morning when I was on my way to school I saw some activity going on at the empty store. The new owners are finally here I thought to myself so I went over to introduce myself. A gruff voiced Man in his 50's asked "did you work here before"? " I answered "Yes I did", feeling a little intimidated. "Well leave your phone number, we'll call you if we need you." A few weeks later I got the call.

On my first day with the new owners I thought to myself 'man this old guy is grouchy.' But It did not really bother me. I was comfortable working for him. Probably because his son made it easy with his funny personality and his loose manner. After a period of time I became even more comfortable working there and came to realize that Frank was not really a grouch, but just a gruff, abrupt, and straight to the point kind of man with a good heart. His wife Elaine was a motherly type, but very much business. And Paul, their son was a wild young man in his early twenties with a fun personality and a ticket to every Grateful Dead concert in the Bay Area and beyond.

Frank was a wizard at getting produce for dirt cheap and then placing ads in the local paper that no one, not even the big chains could beat. I'll never forget the expressions he used to blurt out on the market sales floor. "Stack 'em high and sell 'em cheap!" And then a chuckle. "We're moving out west." The store would be packed with shoppers and you'd hear him again mimicking Jackie Gleason "how sweet it is! Most likely because there would be a fat register count at the end of the day.

I had more fun at Frank's store than at any other job I've held. Although it was fun we worked hard. It was from Frank that I learned the essentials of fresh produce. I learned seasons and growing methods. I learned of storage & handling. I learned buying and selling. I learned the difference between a choice and a fancy orange. A field run cucumber and a select grade and so on. But the most important thing I learned was how to work, work hard, appreciate it and respect it.

Working for and with Frank for almost 10 years saw me through some of the most important times in my life as I grew from teenager to young man. I truly felt like the place was my home. He helped me buy a car. He gave me advice with my girlfriends When I went on a two week vacation to Florida at 19 years old, I ended up staying there for four months, He finally got a hold of me and sent me a plane ticket to come home.

Frank used to go to the country and buy produce from farms. Once in a while he would take me with him and I loved it! I particularly liked to get melons. Honeydews, orange fleshed honeydews, cantaloupes, casabas, crenshaws and even "cantadews and honeyloupes", you could never find the latter two in the supermarkets, but we had them! He worked this deal, if we brought the workers booze, they would load us up! One guy would drive slowly through the field and another guy (usually me) would stand up in the back of the truck. The workers would follow the truck, pick and toss the melons to me and I would drop them into the bins. Then we would pay the farmer, drive back to the Bay Area to the market, sell 'em, and eat 'em.

When I could get up early enough I would meet Frank & Paul at the Oakland Wholesale Produce Market. I would listen to Frank haggle with the vendors over pricing. It was like stepping into an old movie. His stories about the old 6th Street Market in Oakland in the 30's and 40's were fascinating. Stories of produce coming into the Oakland Produce Market on rail cars, the Legendary Swan's Market in downtown Oakland and the Lasalle Market. The Farms on Bay Farm Island, Cherry Orchards in San Leandro, Tomato fields in San Jose, and peaches in Hayward. Frank was a walking history book of Bay Area agriculture. He was well known in the Bay Area and a well respected produce man

Years later Frank and his wife Elaine "retired" and moved to the island of Kaui in Hawaii, where they opened a produce market and a restaurant. I had the opportunity to take owner-ship of the market that I had worked at so many years for a brief period of time with a partner who was a childhood friend. I upgraded the store and did a lot of things to it that Frank told me would never work. I brought in fancy produce and organics. A large line of gourmet groceries and organic dairy items. When Frank came to visit in the summer, he walked the entire store, not saying a word. Then he came to me and said "I'm very impressed. The store looks good and you have business too." I was proud. My mentor in the business was impressed with what I had done to his old store and it made me feel good.

Unfortunately my childhood friend and business partner turned out to be a less than ethical businessman 12 newspaper articles on the store and 10 months later I was out. After I left, the store rapidly declined in quality and business and finally closed.

The store today is in the hands of Paul Marchi, Frank's son and is the broadcast site of The Produce Pair Radio Show.

I have fond memories of the old days working for Frank. Today when I was told that he had passed away I came home and cried, and then began putting my memories together to write this column.

The produce industry has it's many giants and you read about them in The Packer and The Produce News all the time. Some of us in the industry have our personal giants. To me Frank Marchi was the one. I took his work ethic with me every place that I have worked and always had outstanding performance reviews. His ethics became my ethics. Not only working hard and appreciating it, but being a gentleman as well. This past Sunday the industry lost a giant, a personal giant that will not be written up in The Packer or Produce Business magazine, but right here on The Produce Pair web site, and more importantly in my mind and my heart for the rest of my days. Goodbye Frank, you will be terribly missed.

Frank & Elaine Marchi