SAN FRANCISCO—San Francisco cares about food. As the original home of the popsicle and the martini—and famous as it is for sourdough bread (and bowls)— it’s no surprise that the city’s food community thrives off innovation as opposed to city-fied classics like “New York-style” cheesecake and “Chicago” deep-dish pizzas.
Homemade frozen custards, pork-belly biscuits in jelly pepper, and “Almost Better Than Sex” cake were things people could find in the popular pop-up Underground Market for the last three years. But now the market is closing.
“It really just hasn’t been the same event it was in the past,” said Underground Market founder Iso Rabins.
The market started as a small endeavor, a project local forager Rabins created when he couldn’t get into a farmer’s market. Rabins realized that other small food businesses couldn’t afford the permits and fees required for many markets either, and there was gap instead of an outlet for the small-scale productions.
The first Underground Market emerged in Dec. 2009, with seven vendors and up to 150 eaters. As a small, private dinners and members-only club there was no need for the standard vendors permits, but people like good food, and people talk, and so the market grew. Through word of mouth and wide press coverage, a couple of markets later thousands of people were pouring in with over a hundred vendors at each event.
“I definitely didn’t anticipate it getting as big as it was,” Rabins said.
The market sparked a series of similar events throughout the nation and up through Canada.
“Unfortunately, we had to learn about it from others,” said Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH).
Cease-and-desist letters were sent in June 2011, and this caused the dry period with no events held the remainder of the year.
