Valley Farm Market opens in La Jolla: New high-end butcher/specialty shop fills niche

La Jolla gobble-gobbled up the Valley Farm Market butcher shop and specialty store when it opened at 6902 La Jolla Blvd. just two days before Thanksgiving. Owner Derek Marso said he sold 40 free-range turkeys on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Opening a new grocery store is difficult enough, but doing it two days before the year’s biggest food holiday almost seems masochistic.

“We wanted to be open for the community,” Marso said. “We know it wasn’t the best time, and I almost called it off, but the overwhelming positivity made the decision easier.”

Marso is the son of Eleanor and Felix Marso, who opened the first Valley Farm in Spring Valley in 1956. The new store, only the family’s second, fills a niche for high-end meat and organic produce in the well-to-do Windansea Beach neighborhood. It is located on the ground floor of the 18,330-square-foot mixed-use luxury apartment complex that used to be the Nautilus Professional Building.

Marso said he plans an official grand opening “sometime in the upcoming weeks.”