A sunflower-decorated Nugget blew me away this week.

I’m talking about the Nugget Market in Elk Grove. We saw it last weekend when visited our good friends and yours, Food for Thought tech genius Jim Gore and reality-checker idea-machine Darcie Gore.

I hadn’t been to Elk Grove in forever, like 15, maybe 20 years. Gone was the sleepy little Sacramento bedroom community surrounded by open fields and agriculture.

In its place was a rolled-out attractive city with nearly 140,000 residents, a place with a Chico-ish quantity of trees and manicured landscaping and shopping centers that featured the usual suspects: Trader Joe’s, World Market, etc.

But what really turned my head was Elk Grove’s Nugget Market: a single-story Crayola-colorful building with massive painted sunflowers all over its front. Artistic metalwork started in the parking lot and worked its way over the windows and to a huge iron butterfly bench. A pair of plaster women statues flanked the entrance. 

Bruce and I spoke simultaneously.

“Wow, what was that?”

The Nugget Market, that’s what. Turns out that Elk Grove Nugget Market is one of about eight of the company’s ”European-marketplace” stores. I’ve since learned that it also owns at least three Food 4 Less stores (Cameron Park, Vallejo and Woodland), but I don’t know if it owns the Redding Food 4 Less.

The next day I visited the Nugget Market with Darcie.  Jim and Bruce stayed home and worked on Food for Thought’s Aug. 1 surprise. (Four days left!)

Bruce couldn’t figure out why I’d want to see a grocery store. Big whoop. 

Darcie knew I’d fall head over heels in love with the Nugget. Smitten, actually - from its gorgeous painted floors to its clever, whimsical overhead displays (metal octopus, anyone?). The place was an over-the-top shopping destination that touched all the senses. It was part art exhibit, part food celebration, part gift boutique, part flower mart, all enclosed in a gorgeous grocery store disguised as a museum. Everything was beautiful and tasteful and creative. The deli and bakery and produce section and even fish counter were works of craftsmanship and culinary art. Even the food boxes were cute and classy.

My cynical side guessed that, of course, customers paid dearly for all this, much like what happens at Whole Foods or other speciality markets.  

Wrong.

The Nugget prices were competitive and reasonable. In fact, it’s currently holding a contest to encourage customers to conduct price surveys at other stores. The prize is a $1,000 shopping spree.

A clerk bragged that so far, 80 percent of the time the Nugget Markets’ prices were lower than stores like Raley’s and Safeway. Darcie and each took a price survey home with us, just for the heck of it. Then we bought a few things.

As the clerk rang up our items, she chatted and asked questions, which is how she learned Darcie was an Elk Grove newcomer.

As we left, a checker rushed up and presented Darcie with an ample bouquet of yellow flowers wrapped in celephane.

“Welcome to Elk Grove!” the clerk said.

Darcie and I were dumbstruck. Then we looked at each other and laughed, and kept laughing pretty much all the way home. 

For the price (wholesale) of a bunch of mums, the Nugget had gained Darcie as a dedicated customer for life. 

Brilliant.

Everyone buys food. And we have myriad shopping choices. Nugget’s a wise company to combine art, beauty, good products sold at fair prices, all wrapped up in unexpectedly spectacular customer service.

That thought lingered as Bruce and I headed home. The drive got hairy when we missed our turn-off because of some hellish Sacramento construction detours. We ended up on some back roads in the boondocks that finally led us (thank you Tom-Tom GPS) to Highway 99. 

This was my first time on that narrow stretch of highway. We passed through tiny towns, like Live Oak, whose name we knew because its light-pole flags said so. We saw many orchards, which gave me the idea to stop at a produce stand.

The next roadside sign that advertised ”Freestone” Peaches directed us to a sharp left turn, then up and over the railroad tracks to an immediate dusty stop near an orchard. 

The produce stand’s footprint was about the size of a couple of pickups. Faded plastic flags with alternating primitive colors, more often at home at used car lots, wrapped the awning and waved in the dry, hot air. Spindly tables displayed open cardboard flats of single-layer softball-sized peaches, blushing nectarines, tennis-ball-sized pluots (plum/apricot cross) and huge crimson tomatoes. 

A man with white hair and mustache, twinkly eyes and an easy smile stood behind the tables near a collection of ripe fruits that had been cut. Their rosy insides were exposed. Samples, I thought.

The man picked up a small paring knife, reached for a perfect, whole peach, cut generous hunks from it and handed them to me and Bruce. I started to say we didn’t mind if he cut from the already cut fruits, but he spoke quietly and sliced quickly. 

He formally introduced us to each fruit, and as he did, his little knife worked as both cutter and server. Bruce and I could hardly keep up with tasting each new slice.  They were all so sweet and juicy. The man barely looked up as he nodded toward the roll of paper towels for us to mop up our faces, hands and forearms.

Clouds of dust announced the arrival of more cars and customers: an older woman with some little kids in tow; a pair of guys with names stitched on their denim shirts - they spoke Spanish to one another and the produce stand owner.

One middle-aged guy in a red tank top filled a shallow box with peaches. He said he was heading to Lincoln to see his grandchildren.

“They’ve probably never tasted fruit like this,” he said.

The produce man smiled.

After we’d paid for our peaches, nectarines and tomatoes, the produce man added a gigantic peach to our box.

“It’s good to be nice to customers,” he said with a grin.

We drove home marveling how we’d encountered two impressive retail experiences in one day: One at a big, beautiful corporate-market, the other at a small, plain one-man produce stand.

When it comes to understanding customer service, they’re in the same league. Outstanding. 

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