Local Mission Market

Local: Mission Eatery Employee Fired Days After Reporting Sexual Harassment, Lawsuit Claims

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

With Local: Mission Eatery, Local's Corner, and this week's opening of Local Mission Market and the announcement of Local Cellar, Yaron Milgrom's business empire continues to grow and make an impact on the neighborhood.  However, a string of complaints this year are beginning call his business practices into serious question.

According to a complaint filed in San Francisco Superior Court, Local: Mission Eatery's general manager “repeatedly harassed” server Ariel Rose “throughout the course of her employment,” despite the restaurant's owners being aware of the situation:

“[The General Manager] repeatedly engaged in sexual harassment through persistent, offensive comments based on sex, including but not limited to the following: commenting on PLAINTIFF's breast size, comparing PLAINTIFF's breast size to other employee's breast size, commenting on PLAINTIFF's weight and appearance, and repeatedly telling PLAINTIFF graphic details of his sexual encounters.”

After “repeatedly complaining” about the harassment, Rose formally met with Milgrom on January 8th to discuss the harassment.  Five days later, she was fired.

The general manager was still posting to Mission Eatery's Facebook wall as of July 16th, suggesting he was not terminated.

The lawsuit also alleges other employee abuses, including:

  • Failure to provide employees with legally-mandated rest periods, or further compensating those employees as required by law.
  • Not giving employees working more than 5 hours time to eat.
  • “On at least one occasion,” the restaurant didn't pay employee's wages on a scheduled payday.
  • Failure to provide earning statements for tax purposes.
  • Not paying owed wages to the fired employee.
  • Taking tips left for servers.

According to additional documents related to the case, “settlement discussions [have] reached an impasse” and the case is scheduled to go to trial in April 2014.

The lawsuit precedes another controversy for the “Local” businesses.  In April of this year, a Latino family alleged Local's Corner refused to seat them despite having available seating, implying it was racially-motivated discrimination.  Yaron later apologized for the incident, saying he was “deeply sorry” and it was “a huge failure to enact our commitment to everyone with whom to interact.”

As the tipster who sent us the server's complaint told us:

I'm starting to actually feel sorry for Yaron, despite having his weird empire of businesses, he's kind of the most hated person on this side of the Mission. But the attached does not do any good for his image at all.

We agree—the attacks on Yaron and his personal property have been, at times, overwhelming.  However, if any of these claims prove to be true, it casts a damning light on the man's business practices and general ethics.

Neither the Milgrom nor Rose have responded to emails for comment, but you can read the original complaint below:

[Photo by markevnic72]

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Local Mission Market: A Supermarket For Food-Savvy Shoppers Who Think Bi-Rite Is Too Cheap

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Ever since the DeLano's at 23rd and South Van Ness closed down, southern Mission has been without a worthy supermarket within walking distance.  So when Yaron Milgrom of Local: Mission Eatery and Local's Corner fame announced plans to open a supermarket at 22nd and Harrison, I was hopeful—sure, it would likely be priced at Bi-Rite levels, but the space was huge and promising, and Milgrom himself proclaimed Local Mission Market would be “a full-service grocery store.”

“Everything you would expect to find at a European grocery store, we'll have here,” he told SF Weekly. “Tomato sauce, apple sauce, ketchup, mustard, pasta, crackers, breads — all house-made from scratch, just like we do at the restaurants.”

After two years of waiting, Local Mission Market finally opened their doors this week.  And wanting something other than expired Clif Bars for breakfast, I swung by this morning to grab something to eat.

Photo by Powen S.

It was immediately apparent that this wasn't a supermarket.  In fact, it didn't have any aisles, or really much of anything.  It's really more like a church bake sale with a cold case.  My hopes of getting some cereal or something that appeals to my childish dietary sensibilities was not going to happen.  I pressed on anyway.

I thought about doing yogurt with granola, but the yogurt came in giant jars that resembled boar semen sold in bulk.  Also, $9?  Hahahahaha! Good one, Yaron.

Next on my list of ideas was making an omelet.  The prices of the mushrooms gave me the chills, although I'm told these prices are about right (even if they're more expensive than what you can get at the Mission Community Market).  In fact, their entire produce section seemed reasonable—prices within the margins, quality that was undeniably choice.  But then again, they were trying to charge $4.50 for a dozen Rock Island eggs—the same dozen you can get at Rainbow and Duc Loi for over a dollar less.  And these high prices are from a for-profit grocer that just accepted $50k+ of free money on Kickstarter.

At this point, I resigned myself to eating my expired energy mash, but perused the store out of a sick desire for journalistic completeness.  $8 spaghetti, $12 tomato soup, $10 jar of pickles, San Andreas cheese for $45/pound. I rushed around to find a case of booze to make it all more tolerable, but they didn't even stock that.

In an interview with The Atlantic Cities, Milgrom reiterated the claim that this is a “one-stop market” with “prices that undermine or are at minimum competitive with other stores in the area.”

“People with a range of incomes should be able to shop here,” Milgrom says. “If you come here, you can shop affordably: talk with the butcher, talk with the staff, and see what great food you can make for less.”

Good luck with that, but I'll be holding out for a real grocer to revive the old DeLano's.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

New Neighborhood Grocer Will Be Just Like Bi-Rite, Only, Like, Convenient and Stuff

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Taking this whole “slow food” thing a bit too literally, the folks behind Local Mission Market are half a year past their originally-planned opening date—and their forthcoming 22nd and Harrison market is still enshrouded in plywood.  But they're nevertheless working hard on opening, and knowing better than to let a fresh plate of foodie buzz go cold, they laid out exactly how the future of Mission District markets will look to the critical eye of The Weekly:

How will the store be laid out?

It's going to be a full-service grocery store. There will be a produce section, a butcher, a fishmonger, and cheesemonger, all from the same sources we use at Local Mission Eatery and Local's Corner. A bulk section, wine and beer (if we get the permits), candies, brittles, dried fruits and local nuts. Everything you would expect to find at a European grocery store, we'll have here. Tomato sauce, apple sauce, ketchup, mustard, pasta, crackers, breads — all house-made from scratch, just like we do at the restaurants.

What is going to differentiate you from the other stores and markets around town?

From the initial concept, it was clear that we needed to make this convenient. Bi-Rite is one of the great grocers in the country, but it's hard to shop at Bi-Rite. We're not going to have more parking, so how can we make it easier to buy the food that we want to get to people? We are going to have an online web store that will make it easier for people to buy what they need. It will reflect what is in stock, and we'll have a pickup area to make it more convenient.

Oh man, just the other day I was in Bi-Rite dropping a small fortune on clementines and I was all, “Damn, this would be so much easier if I could order these with my phone in Dolores Park and pick 'em up at will call so I could ensure they don't sell out before I walk half a block.”  Great minds!

[SF Weekly | Photo by Nat]

Previously on Uptown Almanac: