Starco Mart

A convenient place to go if you live around soma residences. They have your basic cooking and household needs. However the quality of the food may not be the best. The eggs, for example, go bad pretty fast even if you put in the fridge. Nevertheless. It’s still a good place to shop for you emergency needs.

So I was here to buy my Samtrans token. It was a clean store and the cashier was pretty pleasant to me. The down side was for some reason she didn’t take credit card that day (or not for the Samtrans, I’m not sure), and I had to pull out every single bills and coins I had left in my wallet to get enough to pay. Other than that, it was good experience

Love this mart. Live close by so it’s convenient. They’re small but love how they have a lot of random stuff. Once I had to get a weird spice for cooking and they had it. Their coffee sucks though so don’t get their coffee. Service is okay just like any convenient store.

Rude rude rude! The guy began speaking some sort of Asian to me simply because I am Asian too! WTF?!
Also, he charged me $ 1.15 for a $ 0.99 bottle of soft drink. I didn’t know we have a 10% sales tax here! He tried to claim that it was crv but the math just didn’t work for me! Don’t go there unless you want to pay more than you should and if you are looking for some racist treatment.

They have a large selection of Filipino food items… great for those living in Downtown SF where most Asian food markets only have a small section dedicated to Filipino foods. I also love that they have frozen bangus available as well as other meats in the fridge & freezer section. I would give another star if they had more produce — they had 4 overripe mangoes as the entire produce selection when I went: (

I love this place, they carry their own homemade longaniza. Of course it helps that it’s where my soon to be ex-​boyfriend lives. I love stopping by to pick up a few things if I’m in the mood to make something Filipino, which is quite often.

A simple Filipino/​Asian market for your basic groceries. It’s really tiny, but there’s a good variety of product inside.
The location is convenient.

I also live in the Soma Residences upstairs so Starco is super convenient.
Likes: Cheap milk, diet coke ($ 1.99 for a 2 liter all the time), convenient for paper towels and the life, no beer or wine (otherwise it would attract even more sketchy people).
Dislikes: Claims to be a deli but really isn’t, closes at 7:30 on Fri and Sat.

This small grocery store is a nice convenient place to get the basics you’d need to get through the week. You can find eggs, milk, bread and vegetables as well as Asian specialties (pastries, desserts, canned goods and sauces)…the prices are pretty low for a convenience store, which is a cool thing. The people who work there aren’t over-​the-​top friendly, but they aren’t at all rude.
Besides the Asian specialties, I’m sure the biggest draw is also that they sell MUNI passes here and you can use your credit card to buy them… now you don’t have to wait in those ridiculously long lines on the first of every month to get you MUNI pass… nice!

I used to live in the apartments that are part of this building. This store is one of the things I miss most about living here. You can get:
Lipovitan-​D/​Red bull tonics
balut
basic groceries (cereal, beans, eggs, bread, some veggies)
noodles
asian/​ethnic foods
asian/​ethnic medicines
pots/​pans/​chopsticks
It’s hard to believe all the stuff they pack in to that little store, and the owners are really nice.

No real meat, veggie in stock. Love this store for they carry many Filipino canned goods, and instant noodles.

Right under SOMA residences in lil’ Loin is a jam packed asian grocery store. They carry a lot of Filipino baked goods, food, and other treats. You can get your frozen lumpia, your longanisa, your hopia, and you bibinka all at one place… they even have balut (as seen on Fear Factor). They also carry your typical convenience store goods like milk, bread, fruit, vegetables, and lottery tickets.

My girlfriend used to live in the building on top of starco mart and I love this store. It is one of the few places in the city you can get a bus pas with a credit card, but they charge a 25 cent fee. They have lots of stuff here it is way better than the normal corner store and WAY better than welcome super market. Four stars for poor hours.

Starco Mart is all about being convenient for me… it’s basically in my building so it by default gets my business because I am such a lazy bastard at times… That said, it is actually a pretty decent place to shop for the sundry items that you might run out or need on the fly (think Kraft Mac-​n-​Cheese, TP, Sriracha, Laundry Detergent, Paper Towels, Bananas, Tiger Balm, JIF, etc.)…However, if you have specialty needs, and they aren’t Asian in flavor, then you just might be SOL… However, if you need Fish Sauce or Nori they’ve got you covered…
Pluses
— Close and convenient
— Decent hours of operation
— Wide array of the basics
— Wide array of the not so basics with a oriental flavor (Looking for Zheng Gu Shui they have it)
— Reasonable prices
— Good coffee (Can you believe it? They actually do a mean Double Latte)
— Take credit cards and have an ATM
— Filipino Desserts are always at the check-​out (Tasty treats!)
— Carry housewares for when you need a strainer at last minute notice
— Decent ice cream selection for the sweet tooth
Negatives
— Minimal fresh vegetable selection
— No real meat selection unless you like frozen sausage and/​or unidentifiable fish (OK I could read the label but it ain’t working for me)
— No beer, wine or liquor
— No ‘health’ food type foods — think Wonder Bread variety foods (I would kill for them to carry some sort of a Hummus selection and some Pita bread — Also Tortillas would be nice)
— Mostly Asian focused, need to add some Latino flavor (Tortillas, chips, etc. to the selection — see above)
— Somewhat crazy store layout means you will have to search a little to find some items
All-​in-​all, a good store to have in the neighborhood and the owners have always been nothing but nice… If you live in the neighborhood and you wanted a dependable corner store (well it’s not on a corner but you know what I mean) to call your very own then I would say look no further…