The people of the Tenderloin finally have a place for French-cut pork chops, organic cantaloupe and caviar.

On Thursday, event planner Stanlee Gatti and business partner Bill Grzywacz opened Meraki Market in a Craftsman-style brick building they refurbished on Post Street. The deli-market offers the neighborhood a mixture of fresh produce, meat, fish and flowers, cheeses, prepared meals, paper-and-twine wrapped egg salad sandwiches, and pantry items like June Taylor jams and tomato sauces from Gattonelli Farm in Mendocino County. Wines come from local makers like Scribe and Robert Sinskey.

Chef Mouhssine Benhamacht and staff, who work in basement kitchen full of gleaming appliances, make many foods in-house, including meatballs, fried chicken, stocks, hummus and guacamole. The prices are mostly similar to what you’d find in other high-end stores, though a few, like a fried snapper sandwich for $16, are higher than you might expect.

Gatti has promised to bring in guests like Charles Phan, Alice Waters and other members of the celebrity chef universe he frequents as San Francisco’s most prominent party designer.

With a suited security guard posted outside, the market is part of the slow-and-steady gentrification happening in the neighborhood, where food shopping needs previously could only be met at corner stores, produce markets and Vietnamese grocers, along with a few supermarkets on the periphery of the district.

That issue prompted on commenter on Facebook to say: “We don't need a high-end market in the Tenderloin.” Another had the opposite perspective, saying “Welcome to the TL, Meraki Market!”

Gatti lived in the Tenderloin when he moved to the city 1978, so he’s seen it evolve longer than some. The next question is whether his little market will play a role in pushing the TL even farther away than where it was when he first got here.

Meraki Market, 927 Post St. (between Larkin and Hyde), San Francisco. Open 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.