Farm Fresh opens Frutopia in Red Bridge

The 36,000 square foot Farm Fresh Market at 11212 Holmes Rd. in the Red Bridge Shopping Center that opened in December at the site of a former Sun Fresh store is continuing to add services to expand its base of customer.

Its latest addition is the soft opening of Frutopia which serves milk shakes, smoothies and ice cream and other dessert and fruit & snack dishes and will expand its menu in the weeks ahead to meet customer requests.

“We want to hear what they want from our customers,” Moe Muslet, store manager, said in an interview.  “We want them to do all their grocery shopping here.”

Muslet noted the store already has a very extensive fresh produce section and fresh meat section with a full service meat counter that have been greatly expanded in the renovated store.  The store also carries fresh seafood.

He pointed out the store’s prices are very competitive, noting the current pricing of large cucumbers at three for only $1.  He also noted the store makes its own fresh salsas & sushi and guacamole sauce and has a deli open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday-Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday with in-store customer seating that sells pizza, fried chicken dinners and other ready-to-eat items and has a very popular serve-yourself salad bar.

Muslet said the deli will be adding coffee and soups made in-house and may be expanding its hours to open earlier and serve breakfast items.  The store already has longer operating hours than many of its competitors, staying open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.  Most area grocery stores shut at 9 p.m. or earlier.

One thing that favorably impressed me when I toured the store was how fully stocked its shelves were.  Several stores I shop at are frequently out of or very low on certain products.

The store’s selections are similar to those of El Mercado Fresco Fresh Market at 6859 Longview Rd. in the shopping center at Blue Ridge Blvd. & Longview Rd. which is owned by the same local grocery store chain, except the Red. Bridge store has a large deli with indoor seating and the Longview store has an excellent bakery that makes a wide variety of baked goods in-house.