Luke’s Local: Redefining Train Station Food

Heading home on Caltrain after a stressful day at work, wouldn’t it be a godsend to get off the train, then walk just a few steps to pick up a gourmet, ready-to-heat meal and organic vegetables to take home?

You can – at Luke’s Local at the Hillsdale Station in San Mateo. This tiny store opened last year in an old, long-vacant ticket office in the parking lot. It sells tasty local and sustainable products, including dripped-to-order Blue Bottle Coffee, Free-Trade bananas, and meals-to-go such as Dungeness crab mac ‘n’ cheese ($7.99) and gnocchi with marinara ($6.99). You need not sneak them on your commute, either, since Caltrain does allow food and beverages on its trains.

Indeed, the Palo Alto Caltrain station has a gourmet coffee stand, and San Francisco station boasts a Subway sandwiches locale. But the Hillsdale station is the only one that sells unique entrees like these that can be warmed up conveniently at home or the office.

It is the brainchild of Luke Chappell, whose family founded the iconic Tom’s of Maine, which makes toothpaste, soap and other natural care products. Chappell, an entrepreneur from the early age of 11 when he started his own bagel business in Maine, thought commuters would embrace a convenience store steps from the platform that offered quality food, especially since the Hillsdale station is set back from El Camino Real and is surrounded by hundreds of parking spaces, making it a chore to grab any kind of sustenance quickly.

“I want to do food that people don’t expect at a train station’’, Chappell says.

Wood bins outside stock flowers and fruit. A refrigerator case holds salads and breakfast burritos, all made fresh daily at a commercial kitchen. Place your order through what was once the pass-through window for the old ticket office. And take a load off on the large wood bench inside that was original to the building.

Chappell’s newest offering is a once-a-week meal and produce box, a joint effort with Farmshares, a Community Supported Agriculture program by local farms in the Capay Valley. Imagine a CSA delivery box that you pick up every Wednesday night at the train station, containing a variety of locally grown produce, as well as a selection of two to four Luke’s Local prepared entrees of your choice. Each week, a local guest chef creates the entrees, too, ensuring a variety of eats. Among the recent offerings have been miso sesame arctic char by Roger Feeley of Soul Cocina and Southern pork pot pie by Blair Warsham of graffEats.

The standard veggie box (produce with two vegetarian dishes of your choice and a burrito) is $25. A regular box (produce with two meals and a burrito) is $32. A large box (produce plus four entrees and two burritos) is $54. You can add extra items, too, including a half-pound bag of Blue Bottle Coffee beans ($8) or a chorizo breakfast burrito ($4.49).

Boxes must be ordered ahead of time at the shop or by email with a credit card. As an incentive, all new subscribers receive a 50 percent discount on their first order, too.

Read more by Carolyn at Foodgal.com