The Art of the Everyday Meal:

Inside Back Porch Market: How Erik and Rose James found community—and themselves—at a little specialty market in Grass Valley.

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When Erik and Rose James bought Back Porch Market in Grass Valley, they weren’t chasing a trendy restaurant concept or a lightning-in-a-bottle startup. They were seeking a good life: honest work, close to family, at a pace that invites conversation. What they found was a community that felt like home the moment they held the keys.  “It wasn’t a plan to buy any business,” Erik says. “It was this business.”

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Roots and returns:

Erik grew up nearby—grade school at St. Joseph’s, then Placer High in Auburn. After a few fitful semesters of college, he enlisted, serving three years in Germany and time in Kuwait after the Gulf War. The military sharpened his focus. Back in California in 1991, he finished a liberal arts degree at San Francisco State, tried retail (“I hated it!”), and—almost by accident—found his calling in food. With GI Bill support, he enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu in 1996, graduating in 1998.

His early career reads like a cook’s road map: Pebble Beach; then to New Orleans to cook at K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen in the French Quarter; back to the Bay, bouncing through kitchens and flirting—more than once—with owning a restaurant. Each time, the margins looked thin and the hours thinner.  “In restaurants, 6:20 p.m. is when you start getting busy,” he says. “Here, we close at six—and by 6:20, we’re locking up.”

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Rose’s path started oceans away. She grew up in Cebu, Philippines, earned a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration, and spent 18 years at Timex as a Document Control Administrator. When her department moved to Hong Kong, she made a different leap—alone—to the United States in 2002, determined to build a future for herself and, eventually, her children.

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