Friday, June 3rd
Rainbow Grocery Cooperative was one of 20 businesses to be recognized
for our commitment to protecting the environment by the San Francisco
Dept. of the Environment at an awards reception at the Rodney Lough
Jr's Wilderness Collections Gallery at Pier 39. We received two
awards, the "Green Business" award and the "Environmentalist" award.
We are very honored to be the recipients of these prestigious awards.
 SF
Bay Guardian, Best of the Bay 2004
Best Place to Buy Soap and Toiletries; Best Independent Grocery
Store
Our readers emphatically approve of worker-owned cooperative Rainbow
Grocery's emphasis on organic, vegetarian, non-sweatshop-made products.
And really, don't the store's ethically sound labor policies and
environmentally sound merchandise just make that soy-infused, barley-braised
tofu-aioli garden burger and all-natural body lotion taste and smell
better?
 SF
Bay Guiardian, Best of the Bay 2003
Best Nonchain Grocery Store
This worker-owned cooperative dedicated to earth-friendly food products
has been around since 1975 and came under fire last year for boycotting
Israeli goods. However, this hasn't hindered our readers from casting
their votes for Rainbow Grocery and General Store, where you'll
find a vegetarian majority who buy locally and think globally.
SF Bay Guardian, Best of the Bay 2001 - reader's pick
Best Organic Produce
Organic produce isn't just for weirdos and fanatics anymore. You
see it everywhere, even in chainy-looking supermarkets. But our
readers still say that the best place to pick up spray-free fruits
and vegetables is Rainbow Grocery. You might also be tempted to
try picking up some of the staff, since they tend to be cute - but
no word on whether they're organically certified.
SF Bay Guardian, Best of the Bay 2000 - editor's pick
Best Grocery
Produce, produce, produce (oh yeah, did we mention produce?). Carnivores
will go away hungry, but Rainbow Grocery 's selection of natural
foods is the best in the city. Think of it as Real Foods without
meat or yuppies. Unique cheeses, a massive selection of dried goods,
and more green stuff than can be found in your average rainforest
make it a gourmet's paradise. Since Rainbow sells items in bulk,
you can purchase as much or as little as you need, reducing some
of the waste associated with shopping for groceries. It also serves
as a mini-Target, selling everything from candles to cookbooks to
yoga mats. What's more, the store is a worker-owned cooperative,
which means that the dollars you spend there are going to the cashiers
and aisle stockers who wait on you rather than some corporate fat
cat in Fresno. Shop at Rainbow and eat organic, you chowderhead,
and buy yourself some sweet smelling lotion while you're there.
The parking lot can fill up, so go during off-peak hours if you're
driving.
SF Bay Guardian, Best of the Bay 2000 - reader's poll
Best Natural Food Store
Year after year, Rainbow Grocery is a readers' poll favorite, and
no wonder. They have everything . It's mostly organic or shade-grown.
Prices are surprisingly reasonable. And though you'll look cool
being there, lots of the other shoppers are downright hot. Nudge,
nudge, wink, wink.
SF Weekly 2000 Reader's Poll, Best of
Best Grocery Store Rainbow Market/Whole Foods (tie)
SF Bay Guardian, Best of the Bay 1999 - editor's pick
Best Olive Tasting
Rainbow Grocery's fantastic olive bar features organic and conventionally
grown olives from just about every country that produces them. There
are black olives with cumin, green Sicilians, and a California olive
medley, just for starters. The selection changes regularly, and
the store sells in such high volume that the olives are always fresh.
Best of all, though, the store actually wants you to sample the
wares. "We encourage people to try them, just not to have their
meals there," says Linda Trunzo, the bulk food buyer who stocks
the olive bar. She knows what many Rainbow customers have already
discovered: after you've tasted a few of these olives, it's pretty
tough to go home empty-handed.
SF Bay Guardian, Best of the Bay 1999 - reader's poll
Best Natural Food Store
No alternative market more gorgeously illustrates the mainstreaming
of natural and organic food than Rainbow Grocery. No dusty bins
of granola and soy flour here. This place is happening, and handsome
in a spare way -- like a loft with really good produce. The prices
are good, too, with plenty of organic items selling at Lucky-like
prices. It's proof that every now and then a genuinely good idea
really does catch on.
SF Bay Guardian, Best of the Bay 1998 - editor's pick
Best Natural Food Store
Whether you want to finally replace that old miso-stained co-op
copy of the Moosewood Cookbook, pick up some citrus-lavender aromatherapy
oil, or refill every plastic honey bear in the house, you can do
it happily, purely, and cruelty-freely at Rainbow Grocery. And as
if wonderful cheeses, union-picked organic strawberries, and a self-serve
bar of bulk olives aren't enough, the bulletin board near the entrance
is a great resource for everything from macrobiotic cooking classes
to rides to the Rainbow Gathering. 1745 Folsom, S.F. (415) 863-0621.
SF Bay Guardian, Best of the Bay 1997 - reader's pick
Best natural food store
In both its incarnations -- crowded and funky on Mission, now sleek
and spacious on Folsom -- Rainbow Groceries has been our readers'
pick for bulk granola and organic carrots. With expanded health,
beauty, and cookware sections (not to mention the indoor parking
lot and bike racks), Rainbow offers one-stop shopping for the eco-concious.
1745 Folsom, S.F. (415) 863-0621.
 SF
Bay Guardian, Best of the Bay 1996
Best natural food store
The newly relocated Rainbow Grocery is bigger and better than ever
- now you could bowl an organic squash down the spacious aisles
without disturbing a single bulk-bin-nirvana seeker. There's even
an indoor parking lot and indoor bike racks - a must, because you'll
need a vehicle to carry home all the staples (and goodies) filling
your cart.
San Francisco Chronicle, Monday, August 20, 2001
MOBY'S BLUES: Trance dance rocker Moby -- who was in town the other
day for a show -- took a little stroll through the fair city.
And as our reader Chad Burns pointed out to us, he got quite an
eyeful.
"I had forgotten there were cities in the States that are this
degenerate," Moby wrote in his online tour journal.
"I was genuinely intimidated. . . . I went for a 40-minute walk
and I saw more homeless and drug dealing and prostitution than I've
seen in NYC in the last five years," Moby wrote.
On the other hand, Moby did like two things about San Francisco:
A) the Rainbow Grocery and B) the Millennium Restaurant, which Moby
rates as one of the five best vegetarian eating spots in the world.
SF Station says: Located under the freeway on Folsom, off
Thirteenth Street (yes, there is one) you will find Rainbow Grocery
and General Store. At first blush, walking in here is a blast of
aromatherapy. They keep the herbs and teas up front and they are
sold in bulk. Anise, lemon, cinnamon, chamomile and then some, displayed
behind plexi-glass tubs. A lot of their stock is sold that way,
bulk means no packaging, that equals lower cost and less pollution,
get the drift?
Birthed in the Mission in 1975 by a group of flour power children
who wanted something better in a supermarket, a few changes in locations
and bylaws produced "a worker-owned cooperative dedicated to
earth friendly food products." These kids are strictly vegetarian.
Very green and on a very large scale. Goals that include buying
locally and thinking globally, a living wage for their people, community
support, discounts, bicycling and recycling. Tofurky for twenty?
Towards the back, in the case.
review by Victoria Joyce
Saveur Magazine: Mentions our incredible cheese dept as
one of their 20 favorites and added that
signs of a good cheese shop are:
1. The staff is passionate about cheese.
2. You can sample cheeses before you buy them.
3. The shop is busy.
4. The cheese is cut to order.
5. The staff is willing (and able) to educate the customer.
6. No mass-produced, low quality cheeses are sold.
Come by and see what all the hype is about.
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