Booze takes a back seat at some Tenderloin corner stores

Carolyn Minjarez looks for an herb while participating in a Daldas scavenger hunt Bingo game at Daldas neighborhood market during it's grand re-opening on Thursday, May 21, 2015 in San Francisco, Calif. Carolyn Minjarez looks for an herb while participating in a Daldas scavenger hunt Bingo game at Daldas neighborhood market during it's grand re-opening on Thursday, May 21, 2015 in San Francisco, Calif. Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close Booze takes a back seat at some Tenderloin corner stores 1 / 12 Back to Gallery

Satwinder “Bill” Multani still sells Olde English 800 at the Daldas Grocery store he owns in the heart of the Tenderloin. The Steel Reserve cans still have their spot in the cooler. So do the Colt .45 bottles and the menacing Stack High Gravity Smooth Lager, with its 9.9 percent alcohol content and $2 price.

But that’s not what Susanta Dhakal was lined up for last Thursday on the corner of Eddy and Taylor. Instead, Dhakal, a taxi driver from Nepal who lives in a residential hotel down the block, was picking up cilantro and ginger, two cucumbers and a tomato.

“I am going to make a Nepalese curry,” Dhakal said. “I cook for my friends.”

Two weeks ago, Dhakal would not have been able to get his curry ingredients at Daldas. He would have walked three or four blocks, or more likely, headed over to Stockton Street in Chinatown. But now there’s a corner store with bananas and shallots and collard greens a one-minute walk from his pad.

Daldas is the latest corner store to be “reset” under the city’s healthy corner store program, an initiative to persuade the Tenderloin’s bodegas to ramp up the sale of fresh produce and healthy groceries while scaling back — or least de-emphasizing — heavily processed junk food, cigarettes and booze.

Multani said so far the new approach has been popular with customers, even if it is too early to say whether it will be good for his bottom line.

“The produce is definitely moving — that is for sure,” he said.

The Tenderloin has 72 liquor licenses in 1 square mile. But it is what public health experts consider a “food desert,” meaning the nearest full-service supermarket is more than a mile away from much of the neighborhood.

For years Supervisor Jane Kim worked with local property owners like the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp. to attract a chain like Safeway or Trader Joe’s. But no dice — supermarket chains have slim profit margins and are reluctant to invest in an impoverished neighborhood where shoplifting can be a problem.

Frightened away

“They call it shrinkage,” Kim said of shoplifting. “Shrinkage was the No. 1 reason they gave for not wanting to come to the Tenderloin.”

So Kim and “food justice” advocates at TNDC and the San Francisco Department of Public Health decided to turn the equation inside out: Rather than trying to lure outside businesses into the Tenderloin, they would preach to the corner store owners already there.

The result is the Tenderloin Healthy Corner Store Coalition. So far, three stores have taken part in the voluntary program, which subsidizes new shelving and coolers in exchange for providing healthier options. Sutti Associates of Burlingame provides design and construction services, which are underwritten by the Department of Public Health.

Radman’s at Turk and Jones, the first store to participate, offers everything from Medjool dates to cabbage to serrano peppers to green teas to whole roaster chickens to 20-pound bags of basmati rice. Amigo’s, on the edge of the Tenderloin, has become more of a traditional Mission-style produce place. It offers 10 types of peppers. Where the Doritos used to be are things like tomato basil lentil snaps. It carries frozen peas and okra, and a selection of whole-wheat breads.

“We removed the junk food and the pastries and a lot of the greasy stuff,” said Nageeb Quraish, who works at Amigo’s.

Learning curve

Part of the program is not only getting stores to carry the healthy items but teaching residents — many of whom live in residential hotels — to convert the ingredients into meals. The program includes cooking seminars, cookbook handouts and even vouchers for residents who “graduate” from the program, according to Belinda Cavanaugh, who lives in the Verona Hotel.

“I’ve made a tofu stir-fry. Whole grains, smoothies, soups. We make our own parfaits with yogurt and fresh fruit. Instead of drinking soda, we drink water infused with fruit or herbs,” she said.

While a can of Olde English 800 may make you feel warm and fuzzy in the short term, over the long haul it’s no match for the stuff that grows on trees or in gardens.

“I’m eating more fruits than I did before. It gives me energy. Like I say, you are what you eat,” Cavanaugh said.

J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jdineen@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @sfjkdineen