Edna Valley Market San Luis Obispo

Some of the best food in SLO from a gas station?

I have to admit until about 5 months ago I did not know about the Edna Valley Market in San Luis Obispo. I had heard of it but had never been and had no idea it was located inside the Shell gas station. Located at Tank Farm and Broad you will recognize the car wash with the grass growing on the roof. It’s diagonally right across from the Marigold Center in SLO. This place is has a hidden surprise as not only is it a gas station, car wash, and mini mart inside it also has some of the best food for lunch in San Luis Obispo and I am not kidding.

The Digs:
Edna Valley Market
4021 Broad Street
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401

The Scoop:
Edna Valley Market serves everything from salad to sandwiches to mexican food and they even have a great breakfast menu. What I love best about this place is they are always changing it up. If you subscribe to their email list you will get a weekly update of their specials for the week and it can be anything from a Chile Verde Breakfast Burrito or Cinnamon Roll French Toast for breakfast to an Asian Chicken Wrap or Albondigas soup or Coconut Shrimp for lunch. Wow! At a gas station?

What Rocks:
I don’t know where to start but to say every single thing I have had here has been fantastic. I am especially fond of the Cobb Salad as it huge and always so fresh. I have also had the sandwiches as well as a burger and fries and its all done very well. This is a place I can safely say you can order anything on the menu and you will not be disappointed. They do a great job and the staff is pretty friendly and there is a great outdoor patio area in the back to eat. You will be shocked how busy it gets as the word is out how good it is.

What Sucks:
Well, it’s in a gas station but other than that nothing. The prices are reasonable and there is a great selection. It does get a bit windy out on the patio sometimes but I really have no complaints here.  Would be very cool if they had a couple beers on tap and you could hang out after work with a pitcher and food.

The Moolah:
Salads are $5.75-7.75. Sandwiches and burgers are $6.50-7.50.

Meze Wine Café & Market

Beautiful Atmosphere but don’t go Hungry

Meze Wine Café & Market is a new place by the train station in the Railroad Square building. It’s a wine bar, café, and market, and the décor is beautiful and the layout is very open but if you are looking for the “SLO atmosphere” you will be disappointed.

The Digs:
Meze Wine Café & Market
1880 Santa Barbara Avenue, Suite 130
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401

The Scoop:
Meze would be a great place to stop in to have a glass of wine, but don’t expect much local wine as they focus on wines from other countries instead of our wonderful SLO offerings.  The bar is very nice how they built it around the open kitchen so you actually see the chefs running around making your food. They have no real stove so they use hot plates to warm dishes and make their creations.  This place is more of a see and be seen environment and it really has no SLO feel to it at all. Although the staff was very friendly I found the whole thing a bit snobby.

What Rocks:
The presentation. Every dish I saw looked good, you just had portions the size you would give your children and for the price your first reaction was “wow, really?” The seating in the place was also good; love the big open window and the open environment. The market is well laid out but it’s not really some place you would specifically go to buy things unless you were already there.

What Sucks:
I really wanted to like this place. The people were very friendly. The food looked good, but the portions were literally a joke. I ordered a Mediterranean Pita salad and when it came I thought it was some kind of appetizer. I literally looked at my friend and we both laughed. Plus it was VERY oily…I mean so oily I couldn’t finish the dish. And this was a salad.  For the price I was expecting something a little more substantial and if I wanted to walk away feeling like I had a good meal I probably would have needed to order 3-4 of this dish as it was so small but at almost $7 a pop, no thank you. I got my dish after about 10 minutes of ordering. My friend got theirs almost 15 minutes later and I was done. Bad.

The Moolah:
It’s pricey but in all honesty, I think they want it that way. Prices for lunch start around $6-7 and go up from there.

Bridgeview Asian Grill

Big Sky Cafe

An icon restaurant in SLO with a fabulous menu but some things are VERY expensive

Big Sky Cafe is well, awesome. Breakfast, lunch, or dinner is sure to find you trying to decide on which “Fresh Market Cuisine” you want to dive into. It’s a healthy/savory menu with something that should please just about anyone, but I think some of its success has gone to its head with some of the prices of the menu items.

The Digs:
Big Sky Cafe
1121Broad Street
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401

The Scoop:
Big Sky is located on Broad Street in downtown SLO. It’s neighbors have all changed out in the past years and there are three new establishments coming in around them but Big Sky has been serving it up well for since the mid 1990s.  It has been reviewed by some famous food lovers from Rachel Ray to Sunset Magazine and even The Wall Street Journal. It really is a “must eat” stop for folks who are new to San Luis Obispo.

What Rocks:
So much. The outdoor patio, the open feeling of the interior, the dishware (I know, it sounds strange), and let’s not forget the food! Their daily specials will not disappoint and if you get there for breakfast, try the Roasted Mushroom Benedict. I was there this time for lunch. My friend got their daily special which was a pasta dish with some spicy sausage and I had the grilled soft tacos with sirloin. His dish was better than mine as the spicy sausage made the meal. It was fantastic.

What Sucks:

Would you pay $13 for this?

The food is amazing, hands down, but some of the items are just too expensive. My soft tacos were $12.95 for two corn tortillas stuffed with meat and lettuce. Really? $13 for that? In my mind that was overpriced even for Big Sky by about $4.  In a time where people are being more cautious with money I would say several items need their prices reduced by about 20-30%.  Even my friend’s dish, that was 3 times as much food, was under $10.  Also, both of us noticed that bottoms of our plates had huge chips in them. Sorta tacky for such upscale pricing.

The Moolah:
For breakfast, most of the mainstream entrées  are around $9-11. Lunch is around $9-$17.