T'z Market Place

T’z Market Place has been in business just over a year at this writing. It is a specialty import foods store, a cheese shop boasting over 150 varieties of imported cheese, and a wine store with more than 250 unique wines and beer. There are wine tastings, sometimes with music, on Friday and Saturday nights. Custom gift baskets are also offered.

T’z Market Place offers a small assortment specialty sandwiches. We ordered a Mediterranean Vegetarian, an Italian Classic and The Rustic. All were served with Sun Chips. The sandwiches themselves were very good. Thick sliced bread is not a big draw to me, since it usually means less of what's between the bread; that's not the case here, where the sandwiches were piled high with their anticipated ingredients.

You can mix and match cheeses to create a cheese platter, or select from a menu of recommended choices. We chose the Gouda Platter. A split of wine (thankfully, we like Pinot Noir because it was the only split available) and some bottled sparkling water rounded out our meal. We shared a Cappuccino Gelato (yum!) for dessert.

While the food itself was good, the little things overwhelmed the experience for me. When we arrived at lunchtime, the owner, the only person at the store, was finishing up a business meeting. We waited. We ordered our food. We found a table (there are only two inside tables, but that's OK--we were the only ones eating that day) and our sandwiches arrived. Meanwhile, a few other retail customers came in, the phone to be answered, and we found ourselves done with lunch when our cheese platter arrived. We took it home. The owner assured us that there is usually another person helping out at the deli counter.

T’z Market Place is trying to be many things at once. Although we really enjoyed our sandwiches and gelato, and our cheese later on, I'm not sure we'd go again to dine in. We did buy two bottles of wine, and we're more likely to visit as retail customers for the wines and cheeses than to sit down for a meal here.