Low-Key Food Euphoria in Beachtown Bohemia
Urbane groceries and generosity of spirit at The Eddy in Santa Barbara
I’m a city person who happens to live in a beach town. So you can imagine my elation coming on two years ago to find out that a legit food-forward corner store was opening up steps away from my studio in downtown Santa Barbara. Here in Beachtown Bohemia, home chefs (and happy eaters) have four ways to shop for their groceries: (1) one of our many, abundant farmers markets (2) impersonal corporate grocery stores (3) Trader Joes (4) smaller, locally-owned grocery stores where you may be able to find an obscure vegan mayonnaise, but no fine Mexican chocolate, or French butter, and certainly no chic bathmats. Enter the concept of The Eddy, the food-shopping equivalent of your coolest friend who slips you sotto voce band tips, Japanese fashion mags with 100% enthusiasm and zero hubris. (Below is a short film of a recent trip to The Eddy as shot by Danielle Rubi Productions)
Microcosm of Santa Barbara: Beachy and Urbane
The Eddy represents so much of what I love about living in Santa Barbara. It’s local but worldly. It’s colorful and casual. It suggests a life of analog pleasures like lounging on a picnic blanket eating Pinyon olives from Ojai while thumbing through an arty wine magazine. The Eddy is a cross between a Lower East Side bodega and an art school retail fantasy all through the unlikely primary color palette of Caillou. It offers an entirely original kind of retail experience in Santa Barbara — which there was decidedly an opportunity for in our historic downtown.
Champion of the Local
In a world that is increasingly corporatized and place-less, The Eddy stands out to me as a champion of small, local food businesses and a community-centered human touch. (You can’t exactly walk into an Albertsons and feel the curatorial spirit of the owner as you walk down the aisles.) But in a small corner store like this, you can feel the owners’ spirit that is a little like perusing someone’s home bookshelf or record collection. At The Eddy you can tell that whomever does the buying (one of the three young female owners) has traveled, or has at least read a lot about foreign countries, the cuisines of said countries, and taken a deep dive into the special trick ingredients of chefs. And it’s all done without pretension or fussiness. Or bravado for that matter. It’s all shared in a way that is playful and light.
From the shelves of The Eddy, I have also become knowledgable about new food products and restaurants based here in Santa Barbara. I first learned about Revolver Pizza’s insane buttermilk ranch salad dressing, Pinyon bread, and Mother Dough bagels from my hungry little afternoon studio snack breaks to The Eddy. Now my family takes weekend pilgrimages, based on this education, to the brick and mortar locations of these fine outfits in town. Revolver Pizza on a Wednesday night for the live jazz has become something of a Joffrey religion. Reflexively, one of my most treasured Santa Barbara cafes, Merci Montecito, has a presence downtown at The Eddy. So I don’t have to wait in line for 20 minutes at their popular Montecito Country Mart location for their boxed chocolate chip cookie dough that my daughters speak of in hushed tones when they want to really mess with my dopamine. They’ve positioned themselves at The Eddy as connectors and believers in our local food scene.
The human connection
Lastly, because we live in a world where Amazon can mail you, via next day shipping, an encyclopedic array of food products in the same sad plastic bubble wrap envelope as the sticky notes and shoelaces you ordered, The Eddy feels like an alternate, old-school universe. I’d argue that experiencing a food shop in person is an ancient visceral pleasure and one of humanity’s most treasured rituals. I’m thinking of The Cheese Board in Berkeley, or Zabar’s in New York, olive vendors in The Medina in Marrakech, or Cookbook in Los Angeles. The Eddy is a celebration of small and fabulous things — the best salt, a beautifully packaged bar of soap, a chocolate bar from Thailand. They are stocked in small quantities, with great care, in order to delight your senses and make your day. It is shop-ownership as an art form.
I can’t do all my shopping at The Eddy. I’ll still need to shop elsewhere after work to run my household and buy produce and affordable staples for my pantry. But I just feel so grateful for the sunshine patch of joy that is this unique corner store in my weekly orbit. The ladies at The Eddy also throw a great party. Check them out on First Thursdays where you are likely to find a heaving cluster of good looking locals of all ages sipping wine at the curb and making merry at the corner of De La Guerra and Santa Barbara Street. If you squint, you might think you’ve found a hidden street in a big city.
P.S. I made an illustration for The Eddy’s exterior that they turned into a bag in a beautiful Yves Klein blue. You can buy one from them in person, or via the button below.
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We’re immensely lucky to have gotten to know you (and your beautiful work!) by way of the shop, Olivia! Thank you for the most generous words—loved every bit of this write-up and shoot 🫶🏻
Oh how I wish I could shop at The Eddy! Unfortunately the commute from Wisconsin is a bit too long. I wish them all the best and then maybe they or at least the concept will spread. A girl can dream🤞