BuyBuyBaby Opening First West Coast Store in San Jose

BuyBuyBaby--a subsidiary of Bed, Bath, & Beyond--has decided to open their very first store on the west coast in San Jose. It's always nice to host a west coast premier! As you can probably tell by the name, this store specializes in baby products and this will be their 29th store. BuyBuyBaby will occupy a 38,000 sqft space formerly held by now-defunct Circuit City in Almaden Plaza (the center with Costco, Barnes & Noble, Trader Joe's, etc.).

Veggielution Farmstand Opening

Last weekend the Veggielution farmstand finally began selling to the public! Almost 56 pounds of fresh, organic, (very) locally grown produce was sold during the soft opening. Everything is sold on a sliding scale. Price 1 is $0.00 for those that are in true hardship, Price 2 is what you would pay at a typical grocery store for standard veggies, and Price 3 is what you would pay for organic produce at a specialized store (this is the support Veggielution pricing!).

The sheer fact that we now have an active farm in the middle of San Jose in 2010 is already mind-blowing... but the care and passion that goes into this production is what makes it truly special. I was fortunate enough to get a behind the scenes tour of "the acre" and everything is tended to by the hands of enthusiastic volunteers. Even the fertilizer is made on-site from scratch and is fed live to the crops (vs. pre-packaged dead fertilizer with fewer nutrients). Hopefully later this year their little acre will expand and they'll be able to offer an even wider variety of produce.

Please support the effort by visiting their farm stand at 647 S. King Road, Saturdays from 2:30pm-3pm! I picked up some broccoli and cilantro last weekend and can attest to the quality... amazing stuff. They're also looking for volunteers if you're interested in contributing to the healthy, local, organic foods movement!

Target Coming Soon to N. 1st St

According to the San Jose Business Journal a massive 138,000sqft Target could be making it's grand opening later this year on 1st St. by Highway 237. This would be the 10th Target in San Jose and would anchor a new shopping center called @First. The finished development will also include 70,000sqft of restaurants and smaller shops, two 5,000sqft pads (one of which will go to a bank), an upscale 225-room hotel, a 168-room Sierra Suites hotel, and 1.35 million square feet of office space (850,000 of which will go to Brocade).

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!! If you still scrambling for a last minute plan, there are plenty of great San Jose restaurants that still have reservations available.  Here's the list of places that have openings somewhere between 5:30pm and 8pm today via Open Table:

• 19 Market
• Amber India
• BlueFin Japanese
• Emiles's
• La Pastaia
• Loft Bar and Bistro
• Maceio Brazillian Steakhouse
• Menara Moroccan Restaurant
• Morocco's Restaurant
• Morton's
• Rangoli India Restaurant
• Rosie McCann's
• Spiedo
• Teske's

Go to OpenTable.com and get your last minute reservation before someone else snags it!

San Pedro Square Market has a Launch Date!

August 1st, mark it on your calendars! That's the date the San Pedro Square Market is officially launching! At less than 6 months away, this is a pretty aggressive target date. They also have a new Facebook page here.

Earthquakes Stadium Renders

I don't know about you guys, but I'm drooling over these Quakes stadium renders. My only concern is noise with the proximity of the airport and the U-shaped design. Earthquakes fans will have no choice but to be louder than the planes ;).

New Business Incentives Downtown

In order to encourage more businesses to set up shop downtown, Chuck Reed and 3 council members are proposing several new incentives for business owners. Here are the benefits entrepreneurs would experience if the proposal succeeds:

• No license fees for new small businesses.
• No parking fees for two years for businesses that sign or renew a downtown lease.
• Potential tax reductions.
• Defer impact fees over an extended period of time (what developers pay for infrastructure improvements).

It's no secret that opening a business downtown can require dealing with plenty of red tape and inefficient city policies that slow down the process substantially. Hopefully if the proposal goes through it will also allow new businesses to open their doors much faster as there is some mention of committing additional resources to development. They mayor implies that the city's development office would operate "at the speed of business" to help move things along.

Veggielution Is Opening Up Farmstand on Saturdays

The group of socially conscious urban farmers known as Veggielution are about to start sharing some of that fine locally-grown produce of theirs. On Saturday Feb 13th, they are going to have a soft opening of their Farmstand from 2:30pm to 5pm. The plan is to have the Farmstand open every Saturday afternoon, and of course they are also planning to open up shop at The Public Market on San Pedro Square this summer.

For their opening they will likely be selling scallions, lettuce, choi sum, arugula, cilantro, broccoli, kale, and chard. What is really interesting (and commendable) is that pricing is on a sliding scale so you pay what you can.

Check it out Feb 13 at 647 S King Road in San Jose.