Other Bay Area Mollie Stone's have followed suit. I consider it a challenge. And regular Jewish customers have picked up on that. Pita King pita bread. Bennett says Friday shoppers pack the store's kosher sections and shmooze over the merchandise or the latest Jewish community gossip.
Customers get such a kick out of it.
People run into their friends and reminisce about merchandise they haven't seen since they were kids. Mollie Stone's may well be the Bay Area's kosher leader, though Bennett has noticed that other independents in the Piedmont area and throughout the Peninsula also have expanded or added kosher sections. Andronico's markets on Irving Street in San Francisco and Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, smaller chain groceries with more than 200 different kosher items, have one of the Bay Area's best year-round kosher sections after Mollie Stone's. And though area Trader Joe's stores do not have a kosher section of traditional Jewish foods, most carry up to 189 kosher health foods throughout the store, according to Steve Schafer, captain of the San Francisco Trader Joe's. It just so happens that a lot of great products are also kosher.