Not just another discount supermarket, but employee-owned WinCo Foods opened at 9 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 22 at Creekside Marketplace, 555 Grand Avenue, San Marcos. That would be the first WinCo discount grocery store in San Diego County . In a tale of two Creekside Marketplace openings, Hobby Lobby opened last month next to the new WinCo. The two retailers were expected to bring some fresh…
Eric Larson director of the Escondido-based San Diego Farm Bureau said a “slight drop in production value comes as no surprise,” when he saw today’s county Department of Agriculture, Weights and Measures annual crop report. “In light of the challenges faced by farmers from the drought and the rising cost of water,” Larson continued, “the change is small enough to be seen as a testament…
Escondido political and civic leaders this week continued to try to find a way to get someone to build a hotel next to the California Center of the Arts. Just that this latest version of the quest for a Holy Grail of a hotel has been downsized from 4-star luxury to 3-star business class. Clay Phillips, Escondido’s city manager, last month acknowledged that a two-step…
With a glorious family and regional tradition, San Dieguito Printers today embarks on yet another groundbreaking community and journalistic relationship. Perhaps you’ve noticed. How could you miss it? The venerable printing company that started as one of North County’s finest community newspapers and transformed into a leading printer provider produced the new print edition of The Grapevine debuting Oct. 8. When they say hot off…
Quirky, but successful, Stone Brewery co-founder Greg Koch kicked himself upstairs this week to a higher calling. After serving as Stone’s CEO since its 1996 founding, Koch named himself executive chairman doing pretty much what he has been doing for a while, long-term strategy and planning. Koch even announced the beginning of the search for a a new him, the new CEO. “This is not…
The answer is — drum roll, please — Little Barn Bakery. The question on a special edition North County “Jeopardy hosted by Alex Trebek: What is Valley Center’s best-kept secret. It’s a humble and healthy combination of Valley Center resident Diana Sourbeer’s Diana’s Granola and Valley Center’s Belen artisan breads at 29277C Valley Center Road. “We want to provide the community with healthier food that…
Wind kicks across the site of the old, abandoned Pete Verboom Dairy just off Highway 76, west of Pala. Once an iconic and important dairy farm among hundreds of San Diego County dairy operations, Pete Verboom Dairy No. 1 and No. 2 are no more, and left blowing in the Pala Valley wind. Verboom was president of the San Diego County Milk Producers Council. He…
There’s a drought on don’t you know, and Tom Jesch, founder and general manager of Waterwise Botanicals on Old Highway 395 knows it all too well. Waterwise, as the name implies, specializes in drought-tolerant plants and succulents. And when you say specialize, it means one of the most amazing displays of such landscaping materials here, there or anywhere. “Being water wise doesn’t mean it has…
Egg-laying chickens at Armstrong Egg Farms off N. Lake Wohlford Road “have less friends in their cage,” said a wry Ryan Armstrong this week, and egg prices have doubled since California’s Proposition 2 went into effect on January 1. That proposition approved by state voters in 2008 calls for 25 percent more room in chicken cages, effectively cutting the number of hens per cage in…
They came. They saw. They trekked like soldiers going off to war, according to recently retired San Diego County entomologist David Kellum. And they learned. Welcome to Ag Day 2015 hosted at the Martin Gang Agricultural Learning Center on Cole Grade Road. Some 1,700 local kids from the entire Valley Center-Pauma Unified School District elementary school community, and fellow travelers, swarmed like bees across the…